Breakers play for WTT title
The Orange County Breakers faced the San Diego Aviators in their first four matches of the World Team Tennis season, and all of them took place in Southern California.
The Breakers won twice at home at the Newport Beach Tennis Club and lost twice in Carlsbad, 58 miles away.
Now the teams will do battle again Friday, with the league’s ultimate prize — the King Trophy — up for grabs. This time, they’re on the East Coast.
The Breakers and Aviators, who both finished the regular season 8-4, meet in the World Team Tennis Finals at 1 p.m. Pacific time at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, N.Y. The finals will be streamed live online on ESPN3, with television coverage on ESPN2 starting at 2 p.m.
Breakers Coach Rick Leach won a WTT title as a player with the St. Louis Aces in 1996, but is looking for his first title as a coach. He led the then-Austin Aces to the title match last year, but the team lost to the Washington Kastles. The Aces then moved back to Orange County in the offseason.
The Breakers have won just one World Team Tennis championship, in 2004. Then known as the Newport Beach Breakers, the team beat the Delaware Smash for the title.
“I think it was a great accomplishment reaching the finals,” Leach said. “It’s going to be a great match. We’ve beat them twice and they’ve beat us twice, and it’ll be fun to play them on a neutral site. I think I would have preferred to play the final on the Sunday at the end of the season, just because the teams were together. I think you lose a little momentum from the season to wait for two weeks. At the same time, it’s kind of unique to play right before the U.S. Open and play at the old site, West Side Tennis Club and Forest Hills. There’s a lot of history there, so I think it’s neat to have the final there.”
Nicole Gibbs, the World Team Tennis Female MVP, paces the team. She finished second in the league regular-season standings in women’s singles and first in women’s doubles with partner Alla Kudryavtseva. She was presented with the MVP trophy at a reception in New York on Thursday night.
Dennis Novikov plays men’s singles for the Breakers and teams with Scott Lipsky for men’s doubles. Lipsky and Kudryavtseva play mixed doubles for the Breakers, who won seven straight matches after the 2-2 start against the Aviators.
“We didn’t have the highest draft picks, we didn’t spend the most money and we probably had the smallest roster of any team in World Team Tennis,” Leach said. “But I think we had great chemistry, we fought hard together, we won maybe a couple of matches that we wouldn’t have won if we didn’t have that chemistry. I think it helps having three ex-college players, Nicole at Stanford, Scott at Stanford and Dennis at UCLA. And Alla has played Fed Cup for Russia and she was around last year, so she knew about the team concept. I think the team really gave their heart and soul to get to that position.”
Gibbs and Kudryavtseva were both on the Aces team that lost in the finals last year. This year, they hope to finish off the season with a title.
“I just like our camaraderie,” Kudryavtseva said. “We have a very good chemistry going, and I think that’s part of the reason we’re playing in the finals. I’m looking forward to Friday. I love the [WTT] atmosphere, and we’ve had some super-close matches with San Diego. So I’m sure it’s going to be a tough battle.”
Ryan Harrison, the World Team Tennis Male MVP, leads San Diego. It will be a busy day for Harrison, who also has a third-round U.S. Open men’s singles qualifying match scheduled for Friday.
Aviators Coach John Lloyd earned WTT Coach of the Year honors. Darija Jurak, Raven Klaasen and Shelby Rogers also will compete for the Aviators.
Though the teams split their four regular-season matches, the Aviators own the tiebreaker (more total games won) and will be able to pick the order of play for the five sets in the finals.
