World TeamTennis Adds Three Franchises for ’93 : Expansion: Kansas City, Mo., Minneapolis and Bradenton, Fla., to join nine existing teams.

Bradenton, Fla., Kansas City, Mo., and Minneapolis were awarded World TeamTennis franchises Thursday and will join the league for the upcoming season. The league will have 12 teams, including the defending Western Division champion Newport Beach Dukes.

The 1993 season will run from July 7 through Aug. 8.

Franchises from Tampa Bay and Vail, Colo., folded after last season because they had trouble attracting fans, according to a league release.

Martina Navratilova, who led Atlanta to a championship victory over the Dukes last season, will return for the Thunder. Jimmy Connors has moved from the Los Angeles Strings to the Phoenix Smash and Bjorn Borg will replace Connors on the Strings.

Those three teams will make appearances at the John Wayne Tennis Club, the Dukes’ home court, according to owner Fred Lieberman. The league schedule as well as the Dukes’ roster will be announced in March, Lieberman said.

“I hope to have the team back pretty much intact,” he said.

Rikard Bergh, Ronnie Bathman, Lise Gregory and Amy Frazier helped the Dukes win the Western Division title before falling to Atlanta in the championship match.

Greg Patton will return for his fourth season as the Dukes’ coach, Lieberman said. After 13 seasons at UC Irvine, Patton left last year to take a position at Boise State.

Here is the league’s new alignment:

West Division--Dukes, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Sacramento and San Antonio.

East Division--Atlanta, Bradenton, Kansas City, New Jersey, Raleigh and Wichita.