Dukes’ Winning Streak Grows With Victory Over San Antonio : Team tennis: Small crowd watches Newport Beach win, 28-19, after a scare from Racquets.

NEWPORT BEACH — As the Dukes’ unbeaten streak grows, the crowds at John Wayne Tennis Club dwindle.

The smallest crowd of the World TeamTennis season, an estimated 1,000 people, saw the Dukes improve their record to 9-0 with a 28-19 victory Thursday night over the San Antonio Racquets. Sunday night’s victory over the Sacramento Capitals drew an estimated 1,300.

So what gives?

Essentially, the WTT is a league built on its stars--Martina Navratilova, Mats Wilander, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and the Dukes’ Zina Garrison-Jackson.

Unfortunately for the WTT, not every team has a star on its roster. San Antonio and Sacramento are two examples.

The Racquets’ lineup of Shaun Stafford, Cammy MacGregor, Sven Salumaa and Andrew Sznajder is not a star-studded group. Nor is it a winning group. With Thursday’s loss, the Racquets fell to 2-7.

The Dukes got off to a big lead early by winning the first three sets, but the Racquets made it interesting by winning the fourth set and taking the fifth to a tiebreaker before losing.

“It got a little relaxed because we got so far ahead,” Dukes’ Coach Greg Patton said.

Garrison-Jackson and Katrina Adams defeated MacGregor and Stafford, 6-3, to the Dukes off quickly. Then Garrison-Jackson, now 2-0 in singles, put away an erratic Stafford, 6-3. At times, Garrison-Jackson merely had to keep the ball in play to win the point as Stafford sprayed volleys everywhere but inside the lines.

The Dukes widened their lead to 18-8 when Trevor Kronemann and Rikard Bergh beat Sznajder and Salumaa, 6-2.

As if they were being lulled to sleep in front of a quiet crowd and a lopsided match, the Dukes decided to let San Antonio back into the match.

In the fourth set, Sznajder rebounded from a 4-2 deficit to beat Bergh, 6-4.

As San Antonio crept to within 24-18 in the final set--mixed doubles--Kronemann livened things up by venting some frustration. After missing an easy volley, Kronemann tore the net off its hinges by smashing the ball into the net.

“I told him, “This way, now we get a break,’ ” Garrison-Jackson said. “Only Tank can break that.”

Trailing 4-2 and 15-0 at the time, Kronemann and Garrison-Jackson, won three of the next four games and the tiebreaker, 5-1.

Patton gave Garrison-Jackson credit for getting Kronemann focused again.

“That women knows how to communicate,” Patton said. “If every couple communicated like Zina communicates, the divorce rate would be nil.”

Garrison chuckled when she heard what Patton said.

“My husband would love to hear that,” she said.

Said Kronemann: “Zina and Greg just told me to relax,” he said. “I get a little bit uptight sometimes.”

Kronemann said he simply lost his cool for a minute.

“I expected to win that easier than what we did,” Kronemann said. “(Zina) was all of it.”

Patton said he’s expecting the atmosphere to be different for Saturday’s match (7:30 p.m.) against Phoenix and Jimmy Connors at the Anaheim Arena.

“That’s our biggest match of the season,” he said. “We could get so far out in front of Phoenix that they can’t see our heels.”

Phoenix is 4-3 and in third place behind the Dukes in the West Division. Connors has won 34 of 50 games and is ranked first among all WTT singles players.

However, Phoenix was upset at home Tuesday night by San Antonio, 26-19.