Connors Wins Crowd, but Dukes Win Match : Tennis: Newport Beach defeats L.A. Strings, 24-23, by taking the deciding men’s doubles set.

It didn’t take much for Jimmy Connors to win over a sellout crowd of 1,900 Saturday night at the John Wayne Tennis Club.

Connors walked onto the court before the L.A. Strings-Newport Beach Dukes TeamTennis match and the crowd cheered. He joked with the crowd and the crowd joked back. He hit crisp winners that Rick Leach couldn’t touch, went on to beat Leach, 6-3, and the crowd cheered some more.

“I’ve watched him play so many matches on TV when I was growing up,” said Leach, who had never faced Connors in a singles match before Saturday. “It was an honor to be on the same court with him.”

Said Dukes Coach Greg Patton: “It’s so fun. Connors is so entertaining. He’s so charismatic, even when he talks to the crowd it’s not a disruption to our team. He adds so much to TeamTennis.”

Indeed, TeamTennis doesn’t get much better than this. As good as it was, though, the best news for the Dukes was that they defeated the Strings, 24-23, by winning the deciding men’s doubles set, 6-4.

Leach and Tim Pawsat beat Connors and John Lloyd, and later it was difficult to know what had Patton more excited, watching Connors or beating Connors.

“I want to see this team go to the playoffs so bad,” said Patton, whose team improved its record to 4-5 and is tied with Wichita for the final playoff spot.

This also was the Dukes’ second consecutive victory at home. The Strings are 6-4.

“We really needed this to get into the playoffs,” Patton said.

After Connors’ victory over Leach, the Dukes trailed, 19-18, going into the men’s doubles, the final set of the match.

Down, 5-4, Connors was serving to force a tiebreaker, but was quickly in trouble. A double fault left him down two set points. He saved one, but Leach put away a volley on the next point to give the Dukes the match.

In other sets: The Strings Alysia May and Robin White defeated Elise Burgin and Amy Frazier, 6-5 (5-1), in women’s doubles; Frazier defeated White, 6-1, in women’s singles; and White and John Lloyd defeated Burgin and Tim Pawsat, 6-4, in mixed doubles.

The Dukes close out their home schedule with matches against Miami Tuesday and Sacramento Wednesday. They end with season with matches Thursday at San Antonio, Saturday at Atlanta and next Sunday at Charlotte, N.C.