Breakers salvage successful s eason

The Newport Beach Breakers may have went a disappointing 6-8 during the World Team Tennis regular season this year, but by no means was it a total wash.

After all, local fans got to see tennis legend Pete Sampras play his first competitive match since retiring after the 2002 U.S. Open.

The Ramon Delgado fan club, dubbed the Desperate Housewives for Ramon Delgado, came into full form, cheering on their favorite son from Paraguay and influencing a group of ball girls to branch off into their own Delgado support group.

And the Breakers, thanks to a quirky rule that allows the host team for the playoffs an automatic entry as a wild-card team, made the most of their chance.

The Breakers defeated the Springfield Lasers in the wild-card match, and swung all the way to the final before falling to the Philadelphia Freedoms.

The highlight of the season was Newport Beach’s 19-18 come-from-behind triumph over the Sacramento Capitals in the semifinals on Saturday at Palisades Tennis Club.

Anastassia Rodionova paced the Breakers with a dominating singles win and a clutch doubles victory with partner Tina Krizan.

That doubles triumph set the stage for Delgado and Rick Leach in men’s doubles.

The Breakers trailed, 16-14, going into the final set, but Delgado and Leach pulled out a clutch 5-2 victory to give Newport Beach the improbable triumph, which sent the team to its third consecutive WTT final.

Newport Beach scuffled during the regular season, due to Sampras’ early struggles and the occasional absence of Delgado, who sat out while Sampras played in seven of the team’s 14 regular-season matches.

Sampras, who drew criticism from Coach Dick Leach for being severely out of shape, went 2-5 in his seven regular-season singles sets, though he won his only singles set in the playoffs.

The Breakers were 0-6 with Sampras in the lineup, until a July 24 road win at Houston.

But a capacity crowd estimated at 2,000 packed the Palisades for Sampras’ home debut July 10.

Dick Leach said Delgado and Rick Leach will definitely be back next season, and he hopes Rodionova and Krizan also will be back.

“Otherwise, we’ll see what we get in the draft,” Dick Leach said. “We should draft pretty high because even though we made the final, our record is below .500.”

Dick Leach also is hoping to be back next season.

“I want to,” said Leach, who just finished his fourth season at the helm. “It’s up to [league co-founder] Billie Jean King and [Commissioner] Ilana Kloss.”

Rodionova, 24, who won some big sets for the Breakers this season, said she would like to return.

“If they want me, I’ll be back,” Rodionova said. “I’d think they’d want to bring the whole team back. I mean, we made it to the final. That’s pretty good.”