Breakers go down to the wire

SACRAMENTO ? The Newport Beach Breakers took a dip below .500 after suffering a 20-17 loss to the Sacramento Capitals Wednesday night in Allstate Stadium at the Sunrise Marketplace.

Pete Sampras, playing his second match with the Breakers (2-3), dropped his second straight men’s singles set, losing to Sam Warburg, 5-2.

Sampras had a chance to gain redemption when he teamed with Rick Leach in men’s doubles in the last set of the night, to no avail. The Breakers and Capitals (3-2) were tied, 15-15, when Sampras and Leach fell to Warburg and Mark Knowles, 5-2, to give the Capitals a 20-17 victory.

Sampras and Leach shared time in mixed doubles with Tina Krizan to open the evening with a 5-1 victory over Sacramento’s Knowles and Elena Likhovtseva. Then Newport Beach’s Anastassia Rodionova defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 5-4, in women’s singles to give the Breakers a 10-5 lead.

But consecutive losses in men’s singles and women’s doubles allowed Sacramento to climb back into the match, setting up the deciding men’s doubles set.

The Breakers host Sacramento today at 7 p.m. dpt-breakers.BGraphicInfo351SSP7320060713351SSP73Credit: Caption: (LA)