Breakers visit Sacramento for opener

Patrick Laverty

It has been said that timing is everything and for 16-year-old Maria

Sharapova the time might be now.

If that is the case, Newport Beach tennis fans are in for quite a

treat.

Sharapova is one of five players on the Newport Beach Breakers,

the reincarnation of the Newport Beach World Team Tennis franchise

last seen around these parts in 1994. The Breakers begin play tonight

at 7 against the Sacramento Capitals at the Sunrise Mall in Citrus

Heights.

The Breakers’ home opener is scheduled at Palisades Tennis Club on

Tuesday, also against Sacramento at 7 p.m. Though Newport Beach’s

marquee player is listed as Lindsay Davenport, Sharapova could be the

breakthrough star.

Nominated by Teen People earlier this year as “one of 20 teenagers

who will change the world,” and last year by Sport Magazine as “one

of 21 athletes to watch out for in the 21st century,” Sharapova

showed what all the fuss is about at Wimbledon.

A wild-card entrant, Sharapova advanced to the fourth round before

falling to fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 2-6, 7-5.

But it’s fellow Russian Anna Kournikova with whom Sharapova has

often been compared. The biggest difference between the two seems to

be that Sharapova actually has the chance to be a dominating tennis

player.

Davenport has been a dominating player for years. The three-time

Grand Slam singles champion lost in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon to

Venus Williams in three sets, but her performance, combined with that

of Sharapova, has the Breakers brass thinking big.

“I think we’re going to have some full stands,” Breakers General

Manager Lisa Fortman said. “There’s no question the performance of

those two young ladies has peaked interest.”

Much of that interest surrounds Tuesday’s home opener, one of two

home matches in which Davenport is scheduled to play, with the other

coming July 12. The first match at Palisades will also mark the

return of World Team Tennis to the area for the first time since

1994, when the Newport Beach Dukes set the WTT record for best

regular-season record with a 14-0 mark.

The 2003 season again has 14 matches scheduled, all played within

the span of three weeks. Included among the Breakers’ home schedule

are matches against the New York Sportimes and John McEnroe on July

15 and the Philadelphia Freedoms and Martina Navratilova on July 26,

the regular-season finale.

With 10 teams from around the country, World Team Tennis is broken

into Eastern and Western Divisions, each consisting of five teams.

The winners of each division will meet in the World Team Tennis

finals Aug. 23 at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing

Meadows, N.Y. during the U.S. Open.

World Team Tennis consists of one set each of men’s singles, men’s

doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles. The

resulting cumulative score decides the winner.

In addition to Davenport and Sharapova, the Breakers’ squad

includes three-time World Team Tennis Most Valuable Player Brian

MacPhie, Josh Eagles and Eva Dyrberg. The club is coached by former

USC men’s tennis coach Dick Leach.

Sacramento, the defending WTT champion, has Andre Agassi as its

featured player. The Capitals’ roster also includes Ally Baker, Mark

Knowles, Elena Likhovtseva and Daniel Nestor. The team is coached by

Wayne Bryan, who guided the squad to the WTT crown last season, the

franchise’s fifth WTT championship in its 18 seasons in the league.

The prize for fans are the marquee appearances by Davenport,

McEnroe, Agassi and Navratilova, but, judging from the Wimbledon

results, it may just end up being Sharapova who steals the show.

“I think both she and Lindsay are doing us proud,” Fortman said.

“It couldn’t be better timing.”