Sam Querrey leads Orange County Breakers past Springfield Lasers

Radar guns that display the serve speed are a new feature for the Orange County Breakers this World Team Tennis season, and it’s a feature that seems well-suited to Breakers marquee player Sam Querrey.

Querrey hit a big serve during the fifth game of his men’s singles set against Miomir Kecmanovic of the Springfield Lasers on Monday night. The ball went right up the “T” for an ace, and the scoreboard showed that the serve traveled 131 mph.

Asked after the match about the serve, Querrey grinned wryly.

“I think the guns here are a little slow,” he said. “That was 135, 136.”

The actual serve speed was irrelevant. What was important to the defending league champion Breakers was that they earned their first win of the season, 22-16 over the Lasers at Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach.

The win was especially important coming off Sunday’s 23-16 season-opening loss to the Philadelphia Freedoms, which broke the Breakers’ 13-match home winning streak that dated to 2016.

Querrey, ranked No. 13 in the world, blanked No. 183 Kecmanovic 5-0 to cap the match. Before that, it was a back-and-forth affair between the Breakers (1-1) and Lasers (0-2).

Querrey, who married Abby Dixon last month, is playing well at the moment. He said his new wife will watch her first World Team Tennis match when the Breakers host the rival San Diego Aviators on Sunday, which will be Querrey’s third and final match with the team.

“It should be good,” said Querrey, playing in his sixth season in the league but first with the Breakers. “Hopefully now that I’m married, I’ll play even better and have a good summer … You feel real pressure out here. It’s not an ATP tournament, but sometimes you feel even more pressure. It’s good to come out and kind of face that, leading up to some big tournaments this summer.”

Querrey contributed to three of the Breakers’ four set wins on Monday. He and Andreja Klepac started the match with a 5-4 mixed doubles win over Springfield’s Daniel Nestor and Abigail Spears.

Spears and Vania King beat Klepac and Nicole Gibbs 5-3 in women’s doubles, but Querrey and Marcelo Demoliner topped Nestor and Kecmanovic 5-2 in men’s doubles.

The men’s doubles set was tied 2-2 before Querrey and Demoliner won the final three games, giving the Breakers a 13-11 halftime lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

King tried to rally her team, with a 5-4 women’s singles victory over Gibbs that pulled Springfield within 17-16. But Querrey made quick work of Kecmanovic to close it out. The 5-0 men’s singles set took just 12 minutes.

Each of the final four games of the set went to a three-all game point, but Querrey won them all.

“He’s our anchor,” Breakers coach Rick Leach said. “You need an anchor. That’s why I did the lineup that way, so we could have him on the court for the last set. I mean, Sam is amazing. He’s fearless, and he’s really playing well right now. This is only going to help him when he plays on the tour in a week or two. Playing at the U.S. Open, if he plays like that, he can win it. It’s all good.”

Orange County played better overall in the big moments Monday, winning nine of the 13 three-all points, including the final eight of the match. The Breakers will try to keep up that momentum as they head on the road, with matches against Washington on Wednesday, Philadelphia on Thursday and Springfield on Friday. The Breakers then return home for the match with the rival Aviators on Sunday at 5 p.m.

Last year, despite winning the title, the Breakers went just 2-5 on the road in the regular season.

“In Team Tennis, it’s very difficult to win on the road, so I think tonight was a big win for us,” Leach said. “We didn’t want to start down 0-2. Sam played terrific. [Kecmanovic, who is just 18 years old] is going to be top 10 [in the world] someday. He’s really, really good, but Sam is so polished, so clutch. He just played awesome. He pretty much carried us tonight.”

matthew.szabo@latimes.com

Twitter: @mjszabo