Orange County Breakers outlast Philadelphia Freedoms, move into three-way tie for third in World Team Tennis
Genie Bouchard is the former world No. 5 women’s tennis player and a 2014 Wimbledon singles finalist.
She is also known for going on a date with a stranger after losing a Twitter bet on Super Bowl LII, when the New England Patriots rallied to beat the Atlanta Falcons.
Bouchard’s only World Team Tennis date of the season playing with the Orange County Breakers came Tuesday night. The Breakers had a showdown with the first-place Philadelphia Freedoms at Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach.
The franchise player Bouchard did her part, helping the Breakers withstand a late rally and earn a 20-19 victory to even their season record at 3-3.
The Breakers led throughout before Philadelphia’s Fabrice Martin and Adrian Mannarino blanked Orange County 5-0 in the final set of men’s doubles, against Johnson and James Ward. The Freedoms suddenly had tied the match at 19-19, and a set tiebreaker would decide the match.
Johnson and Ward saved a match point to get the tiebreaker to 6-6, meaning the next point would decide the entire match. Johnson launched a service winner that Mannarino was unable to return.
“Basically one point decided the whole match tonight,” said Bouchard, adding that adrenaline was still racing through her body after the final point. “It can’t get more stressful than that. It’s interesting, because in normal tournaments you don’t play with this sudden-death [point]. It’s cool to put yourself out there like that. I had sudden-death in my singles [set] and I failed miserably — I double-faulted — but I still think I played well in moments. It was really good to get some match play.”
Orange County withstood a late rally and snapped Philadelphia’s seven-match winning streak, handing the Freedoms (7-2) just their second loss of the season and moving into a three-way tie for third place in the league with rival San Diego and New York, who both are 4-4. The top four teams in the eight-team league advance to the playoffs.
Bouchard played twice Tuesday, splitting the sets. She and Andreja Klepac beat Philadelphia’s Taylor Townsend and Raquel Atawo 5-2 in women’s doubles, handing the league-leading Freedoms duo its first loss of the season.
The set got off to an inauspicious start for Bouchard, who was aced as Townsend’s first left-handed serve twisted away from her. She smiled and kept playing. Bouchard later played Townsend in singles, and she was edged 5-4 (5-4 in the tiebreaker). But it was an impressive night for the Breakers, who couldn’t hold a late lead in Monday’s 19-18 home loss to visiting Springfield.
“You know, we had to play the top two teams in the league back-to-back,” Breakers coach Rick Leach said. “Tonight was a huge win for us. A total team effort … Genie fit in great. The four games she got against Taylor were huge, because Taylor is No. 1 in the league.”
The match started off with mixed doubles, where Orange County’s Luke Bambridge and Klepac earned a 5-4 (5-4 in the tiebreaker) victory over Atawo and Martin. The women’s doubles win by Bouchard and Klepac gave Orange County a 10-6 advantage.
The Breakers kept it going in men’s singles. Johnson, a former Orange High and USC star playing in the second of his three consecutive home matches for the Breakers, had his serve broken at love in the first game of the set. But he came back for a 5-3 victory over Mannarino, and Orange County had a 15-9 halftime advantage.
Bouchard broke Townsend’s serve in the fifth game of women’s singles for a 3-2 edge, but she was immediately broken back. She fought back from a 4-1 deficit in the tiebreaker, winning three straight points. On the 4-4 set point, it ended it a bit anticlimactically as Bouchard did double-fault. She squealed before spinning around in a circle.
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