BREAKERS TAKE IT TO THE EXTREME

Patrick Laverty

The volunteers, in their bright orange Newport Beach Breakers shirts,

took their places. The ball boys and girls, decked out in white,

lined up along the baseline. But that sure wasn’t Lindsay Davenport

they introduced Tuesday at Palisades Tennis Club in a run-through for

the World Team Tennis season that kicks off in less than two weeks.

No, Davenport is still in England, awaiting a second-round match

at Wimbledon today. But Tuesday’s trial run meant there were just two

weeks until Davenport plays for the Breakers in their home opener,

Newport Beach’s first foray into World Team Tennis since 1994.

The return of what Breakers General Manager Lisa Fortman called

“extreme tennis” comes with Orange County at an all-time sports high.

“The Ducks and the Angels are setting the expectations high,”

Fortman said. “So we’ve got to buck up. The standards have been set

and they raised the bar.”

Appearances by Davenport at two of the Breakers’ seven home

matches (July 8 and 12) and the marquee names of John McEnroe,

playing with the New York Sportimes on July 15, and Martina

Navratilova, competing for the Philadelphia Freedoms in the season

finale on July 26, should keep that bar high. But the key to the

Breakers meeting their own expectations will be decided by the

public’s willingness to embrace not just the big names.

The return of World Team Tennis, which features 10 teams from

around the country broken into two five-team divisions, means a

different brand of tennis than that which is currently being seen on

television at Wimbledon.

It’s a co-ed team format, with men’s singles, men’s doubles,

women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles all being played

on the same night. The pace is frenzied, with games being won by the

first team to win four points, sets played to five and a 4-4 set

decided by a nine-point tiebreaker, the first team to five winning

the set.

It’s also more fan-friendly. As Fortman said, There is no “Quiet

please,” coming out of the mouth of the public address announcer.

Even with local players standing in for the regular players

Tuesday, the looser atmosphere was obvious, especially when compared

to the proceedings at Wimbledon.

“From what I know so far, [the players] love the team,” Fortman

said. “There’s a more relaxed environment. They’ve just come straight

from Wimbledon. There’s enough tension there. It’s the biggest

tournament of the year.”

In all likelihood, the Breakers’ biggest nights of the season will

come with the appearances of Davenport, McEnroe and Navratilova. But

more than once, those associated with the Breakers mentioned

16-year-old Russian Maria Sharapova as a possible breakout star this

season.

She’s already ranked among the top 100 in the world, reached the

semifinals in a Wimbledon warm-up in Birmingham, England recently and

Tuesday won her first-round match at Wimbledon 6-2, 6-1.

Oh, and she’s been compared to Anna Kournikova, only that has

nothing to do with tennis.

“I think she’ll have her own entourage,” Fortman said when asked

how the Breakers will promote the four home dates that do not have a

marquee player scheduled to participate.

With 14 matches in 20 days, Sharapova’s time to impress in Newport

Beach will be limited. But Fortman looks at the short time span

optimistically.

“It’s short relative to other sports,” Fortman said. “But it’s

also a time frame where people can get in there and get involved and

see it through in its entirety.”

Some of those orange-shirt-clad volunteers didn’t make it through

the entire dress rehearsal Tuesday. But with the real Lindsay

Davenport scheduled to swing a racket in the home opener, that

shouldn’t happen again.