It’s tennis time Newport Beach, and the Breakers season is in full swing! World Team Tennis (WTT) kicked off last week all over the country, and our Newport Beach Breakers are looking good thus far, but unfortunately dropped Wednesday night’s match to the Kansas City Explorers 17-23. WTT was co-founded 36 years ago by the legendary Billie Jean King, who attended last Saturday’s match, and combines men’s and women’s singles, doubles, and mixed doubles into a single contest composed of five sets.
The WTT joins together future ATP stars, current ranked players from the tour, and legends of the game into one competitive, three-week season that packs 66 matches into just 21 days.
The Breakers roster consists of returning players Lester Cook and Marie-Eve Pelletier and this season’s newcomers Anne Keothavong, making her WTT debut, and Travis Rettenmaier. The Breakers are coached by 20-year WTT veteran Trevor Kronemann who is entering his fifth year coaching the Newport team.
The Breakers came into Wednesday night’s match with a 3-4 record, one game back of the first place St. Louis Aces, and are trying to break out of the middle of the pack in the Western Conference but the Kansas City team looked sharp in their victory as the Breakers dropped to 3-5 and are now dangerously hovering in the basement of the conference.
The Explorers brought a couple of marquee players with them that you might have heard of before – Bob and Mike Bryan. The Bryan brothers have 73 career doubles titles to go along with their 11 grand slam titles, the most recent of which came at Wimbledon earlier this month, and looked absolutely stellar as they took on the Breakers’ Cook and Rettenmaier. The brothers are in their seventh season with the Explorers and haven’t played in Newport Beach since the Breakers first year in existence nine years ago. Although Cook and Rettenmaier played extremely well, the world’s No. 1 ranked men’s doubles team was just too much to handle.
After a close match most of the way, the night finished with a disappointing finish for the Breakers as Keothavong was over-powered by KC’s Madison Brengle and dropped the final set 2-5. The Breakers did win one of the five sets on the night – women’s doubles.
So far the Breakers have welcomed some terrific marquee players in addition to the Bryan brothers including Taylor Dent, Martina Hingis and the great Pete Sampras to The Tennis Club over by Fashion Island and the Newport Beach Country Club.
The Breakers have three home matches left this season – Saturday night against the Sacramento Capitals, Wednesday night against the Springfield Lasers, and Thursday night against the Boston Lobsters.
Tickets for the matches can be purchased by calling 949
