Dukes’ Match Becomes Theater of Absurd : Team tennis: Kronemann finishes a doubles match with no partner during 26-23 victory over Raleigh.

Newport Dukes Coach Greg Patton recently called World TeamTennis “a zoo, a festival, a carnival and a circus all in one.”

Maybe Patton should have kept going. Debacle, farce, theater of the absurd, all would have been appropriate Wednesday night.

The Dukes defeated the Raleigh Edge, 26-23, in front of an estimated crowd of 1,500 at John Wayne Tennis Club, but the final score was but a sidelight to what happened during the third set, a doubles match between the Dukes’ Trevor Kronemann and Mike Briggs and the Edge’s Neil Broad and Tim Wilkison.

Before it was over, there was a surreal scene of Kronemann playing the last two points of doubles by himself.

Yes, two against one.

Maybe it wasn’t an accident that Disney sponsored the doubles sets.

The weirdness began before the match, when the Dukes’ Rikard Bergh announced he couldn’t play because of food poisoning he had suffered Tuesday night at a restaurant. Wednesday morning, Patton called on Mike Briggs, who played at Corona del Mar and UC Irvine, to replace Bergh.

With the match tied at 13 and the Dukes trailing, 5-3, in the set, Tim Wilkison hit Briggs in the head with a sharp backhand return of Kronemann’s serve. Briggs went down, falling hard on his right arm.

After continuing for four more points, Briggs walked off the court and told Patton he could no longer play. Not to fear though--Bergh, who was dressed in street clothes on the bench, ran off the court and quickly changed into tennis clothes.

But wait a minute. Match umpire Jan Ryan ruled that since Bergh was not listed as an alternate, he was ineligible.

The only person eligible? Patton, according to WTT Executive Director Ilana Kloss.

“That’s the scariest thing in the world,” Patton said. “I’m blind in my right eye and I can’t see at night. Sometimes I kiss the wrong woman at night when I think it’s my wife. And they want me to play at night.”

What followed, after a 15-minute delay, is one for the record books, and possibly a Disney movie.

Kronemann, leading 40-30, served out the game, double-faulting once and then hitting a backhand ground stroke long to lose the game and the set, 6-3.

What would have happened if Kronemann held his serve?

“I wanted it to happen,” Kronemann said. “This place would have gone crazy. I would have gone crazy.”

Said Patton: “If he’d have won that game, he’d be legend.”

The controversy seemed to inspire Kronemann, who defeated Broad, 6-4, in singles in the next set to give the Dukes a 19-18 lead.

Kronemann and Manon Bollegraf then clinched the match with a 6-3 mixed doubles victory over Broad and Sandy Collins.

“I realized that I had to bear down in singles and doubles,” Kronemann said. “With everything going on, it made the last two sets a little more exciting than it normally is.”

Said Patton: “We were snakebit again tonight, but Trevor provided the antidote.”

Duke owner Fred Lieberman protested the match after Ryan ruled Bergh ineligible. The Dukes contended that Carsten Hoffman, a UCI product, was allowed to replace Jorge Lozano under the same circumstances two years ago.

Oh by the way, Tracy Austin played the first two sets. Austin and Collins lost a women’s doubles match to Katrina Adams and Bollegraf, 6-2, but she beat Adams in singles, 6-4.