TEAMTENNIS : Tiebreaker Not Super for the Strings in Loss

Trevor Kronemann, the San Antonio Racquets’ player known for his booming serve, held the Los Angeles Strings first game of the year in his hand.

The Strings and Racquets were even as could be. Tied at 24 games apiece. Tied at six points in the best-of-13 supertiebreaker.

Kronemann buried them with a hard serve that String player/coach John Lloyd could only deflect out of bounds.

The Strings lost their TeamTennis 1992 opener, 25-24, Wednesday in the Forum.

It took a rally in the mixed doubles match to get the Strings to the supertiebreaker.

Trailing, 22-18, after the first four sets, the Strings tied the match with a 6-2 victory by Lloyd and Mary Lou Daniels over San Antonio’s Kronemann and Louise Allen.

String member Carrie Cunningham’s TeamTennis debut probably was less than she expected. Cunningham, a 20-year-old rookie, struggled with unforced errors in her doubles match, in which she and Daniels beat Ginger Helgeson and Allen, 6-5, but her real trouble came in her singles’ match against Helgeson.

Cunningham lost, 6-1, to Helgeson, who played for Pepperdine in 1990 and was TeamTennis female rookie of the year with Charlotte in 1991.

Cunningham seemed out of sync the entire match. After falling behind, 4-0, she slammed a ball into the court with her racquet.

In the men’s doubles, Jimmy Connors and Lloyd blew a 4-1 lead to Jean-Philippe Fleurian and Kronemann, a former UC Irvine All-American.

Kronemann and Fleurian won the set, 6-5, with a 5-3 victory in the best-of-nine tiebreaker game.

In the men’s singles, Connors rallied for a victory against Fleurian, 27.

Fleurian, who served harder and ran faster than Connors, could not put him away, despite a 4-2 lead in the tiebreak game.

Connors won the game, 5-4, and the set, 6-5. The victory pulled the Strings just close enough for Daniels and Lloyd to have a chance.