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WTT Orange County Breakers

Breakers Fall To Springfield, 22-17 In Overtime

July 9, 2009 - World TeamTennis (WTT)
Orange County Breakers News Release


NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., July 8, 2009 - Two days after suffering a gut-wrenching defeat to the team that lined up on the opposite side of the court on Wednesday night, the Newport Beach Breakers hoped to exact some revenge and give the Springfield Lasers a taste of their own medicine. Reigning WTT MVP Ramon Delgado rallied the Breakers from five points down going into the final set of last week's season-opener against Washington, but a seven-point deficit proved too much for the WTT's resident Superman to overcome.

Playing in their fourth city in as many nights, the Breakers lost a hard-fought, first-place showdown in the Advanta World TeamTennis Pro League's Western Conference, 22-17 in overtime, to the Springfield Lasers at Breakers Stadium at Newport Beach Country Club. The Lasers (4-0) are the only remaining undefeated team in WTT and lead the Breakers (3-2) by 1½ games.

Delgado won the last set of the night, 5-2 in men's singles, to pull the Breakers within 21-17 and force overtime. However, Raven Klaasen won the first game of the overtime against Delgado to end the match.

"I think after four days traveling the country, we were feeling it in the feet tonight. We were a little slow," Breakers third-year coach Trevor Kronemann said. "You could see it in our players. You could see it in Ramon. We left Kansas City at 2 a.m. this morning. We got off to a slow start and Ramon tried to get us going but we were too far behind. This Springfield team is a very good team. I would expect them to be the class of the West and I would expect them to win the West."

The Breakers fell into a 10-5 hole after the match's first two sets. Kaes Van't Hof and Marie-Eve Pelletier lost 5-3 in mixed doubles to open the match and Julie Ditty fell to Long Beach resident Vania King, 5-2, in women's singles. Ditty won eight of nine points to take a 2-1 lead before King closed out the set with four unanswered games. Making a homecoming of sorts, King has proven to be quite the nemesis to the Breakers in the last few days. King has won 15 games in singles and 11 in doubles (each game equals a point) in the last three days against the Breakers.

On Monday, the Breakers won the first four sets and built a 20-12 lead over Springfield going into the final set, women's singles. King led the Lasers to the second biggest comeback in WTT history, beating Ditty 5-1 to send the match into overtime, then winning the next four games and the ensuing Supertiebreaker, 7-1, to propel the Lasers to an improbable 22-21 win. The Kansas City Explorers hold the record for largest comeback, rallying from nine games down to defeat the Sacramento Capitals in 1997.

"She's been the Breakers-killer," Kronemann said of King. "I'm very impressed with what she's done. She's a very good player. Julie did the best she could against her, playing different balls to her and trying to mix it up. Hats off to her. She played well against us two nights in a row."

The Breakers' attempt to rally began as Delgado took the court for the first time, with Van't Hof in men's doubles. A see-saw set eventually saw the Breakers prevail 5-4 (5-4 in the third set tiebreaker) as Van't Hof expertly returned Klaasen's second serve to his ankles on his backhand. Klaasen was unable to return the shot on the set's decisive point.

Ditty, the USTA Pro Circuit's winningest player of all time with 35 titles (26 in doubles), and Canadian Fed Cup veteran Marie-Eve Pelletier took the court next in women's doubles against King and Chanelle Scheepers. The Breakers' duo won this set on Monday, but lost it in Wednesday's rematch, 5-2. During a stretch of three consecutive games in the set that went to deuce (WTT plays 'no-ad' games), Springfield won two of them and took a 4-1 lead at that time.



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