WTT Orange County Breakers

Breakers Hold Onto Second Place by 1½ Games Over Sacramento in the West

July 12, 2009 - World TeamTennis (WTT)
Orange County Breakers News Release


NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - A titanic clash between two Advanta World TeamTennis Pro League Western Conference playoff contenders reached the ultimate climax at the midpoint of the season when reigning WTT Male MVP Ramon Delgado and 1989 French Open champion and International Tennis Hall of Famer Michael Chang took the court with second-place in the conference on the line.

For the second consecutive night, Delgado beat Chang in men's singles, and for the third time this season, the Newport Beach Breakers stymied the Sacramento Capitals and strengthened their hold on second place in the West with a 22-16 victory at Breakers Stadium at Newport Beach Country Club.

At the season's midpoint, the Breakers (5-2) lead the Capitals (3-3) by 1½ games for second in the West and remain 1½ games behind the Springfield Lasers (6-0), WTT's only unbeaten team. A night after Delgado beat Chang 5-4 in Sacramento, Delgado closed out tonight's match with a 5-1 set over Chang.

The Breakers holding a slim 17-15 lead heading into the final set, the intensity and shot-making Delgado and Chang exhibited over the final set of men's singles was a notch above anything seen at Breakers Stadium this season. Chang may have retired from the ATP Tour in 2003, but the grunting and fist-pumping returned Saturday night.

Each player dug deeper and raised their game. Serves and baseline winners were crisper than anything each had hit earlier in their doubles set. All groundstrokes were fiercely chased down, whether or not they were returned. In the end, it was Delgado who reigned supreme as his groundstrokes moved Chang side to side and were hit too well and too deep. The two shook hands at the match's end after a hard-fought set.

"There's definitely respect there," Breakers coach Trevor Kronemann said. "Kaes (Van't Hof), on the bench, said it to me perfectly when he said this is as close to a WTT rivalry as it gets. Ramon continues to be the World TeamTennis stud that he has been and will be."

Added Delgado, who was 1-1 vs. Chang on the ATP Tour: "It was very intense. To me, it's an honor to play against him. I practiced with him last week and it was great. He's a legend and a great champion. I was happy with the score. Against him, I wanted a bigger lead (going into the final set). I have some tough matches coming up; I've got Robert Kendrick. I've got Andre Agassi. But I'm feeling good. If I feel like this, I think I can compete against anybody."

The Breakers hosted their first marquee player of the season Saturday with Chang, an Orange County resident and former World No. 2. Chang partnered with Mark Knowles in men's doubles to win the third set, 5-4, and pull the Capitals within 14-10 after three sets. Chang, 37, made his WTT debut Friday in a defeat to the Breakers and has enjoyed his WTT experience these past two nights.

"It's great. I had a fun time last night, although we got munched pretty bad," Chang said. "It's nice to be back playing close to home. This is really my backyard. I'm not from the home team, but I feel like I'm a hometown player here. It's been a fun format. Takes a little bit of getting used to. But it's nice to play in a team format, which is something, obviously, we don't get a chance to see that much out on tour, other than playing Davis Cup or maybe a couple other events. Obviously, now being retired, I have a little more flexibility on my time schedule. Billie Jean has been asking me for a long time to be able to come out and play World TeamTennis."

The Breakers, which won eight of the ten sets played in the teams' first two meetings, got off to a first-set victory for the first time at home this season through its new mixed doubles combination of Newport Beach native Kaes Van't Hof and Breakers first-year player Julie Ditty, who entered the mixed doubles lineup for the first time Friday night at Sacramento. The Breakers tandem triumphed 5-3 in the set against Irvine's Angela Haynes and Knowles, who won the mixed doubles championship at Wimbledon last week.

As Ditty has taken over mixed doubles duties, teammate Marie-Eve Pelletier has assumed the women's singles role for the Breakers and improved to 2-0 in her singles sets this season after downing 17-year-old Coco Vandeweghe, niece of former UCLA basketball and NBA standout Kiki Vandeweghe, 5-2. On Friday, Pelletier took a singles set from Sacramento's other female player, Haynes.

"You've got to make decisions and we're lucky it's kind of worked," Kronemann said. "We're just looking for that positive energy, that fire. It's a confidence issue and Marie-Eve has played very good singles the last two nights. We've got a team, and it's cohesive and it's working."

Haynes and Vandeweghe followed up the Chang-Knowles doubles win in the third set with a rally of their own, winning the last four games to take the fourth set, 5-3, trim the Breakers' lead to 17-15, and set the stage for a Delgado-Chang, fifth-set showdown.



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