Breakers fall in OT

NEWPORT BEACH — Maybe the Newport Beach Breakers should change their name to the Newport Beach Heartbreakers.

Two sets in Monday night, and the Breakers were already down nine games and gasping for air.

It wasn’t the way the Breakers envisioned an important World Team Tennis match against the visiting Boston Lobsters at Newport Beach Country Club.

And yet, the Breakers almost came back — almost. Then again, they can say that a lot this season. The Breakers have lost all four of their matches that have been decided by two games or less, and that streak continued Monday.

Newport Beach won the last three sets to force overtime, but Boston’s Amir Hadad held serve at the start of overtime as the Lobsters earned a crucial 18-16 victory.

Newport Beach (5-7) remains in third place in the Western Conference with two matches remaining. However, the Lobsters (7-6) and the Philadelphia Freedoms (7-7) are ahead of the Breakers in the race for a wild-card berth. The top two teams in each conference, plus one wild-card team, make the playoffs.

The Breakers likely need to win their final two matches and have help if they hope to make the playoffs, which begin with the wild-card match Thursday at Sacramento. The Breakers can also go 1-1 over the final two matches, and have a small chance of beating out Sacramento for second place in the conference.

“A lot of things have to happen,” Breakers Coach Trevor Kronemann said. “[Monday night’s match] was pretty much a must-win.”

The Breakers came close, even after falling behind, 10-1, after the first two sets. In mixed doubles, tennis legend Martina Navratilova and Hadad defeated Kaes Van’t Hof and Lilia Osterloh, 5-1.

“I really have no right to be doing what I’m doing,” said Navratilova, 51, who owns 59 Grand Slam titles, in a pre-match press conference. “But, the body is willing and the mind is still able, so why not? I think most people stop because they can’t do it anymore, and I obviously still can. Not at a level that I could 20 years ago, but still at a very good level.”

In women’s singles, Osterloh then fell to Boston’s Marie-Eve Pelletier, 5-0. Kronemann said Osterloh is back with the Breakers after losing in qualifying at the East West Bank Classic in Carson.

Like he often does, Ramon Delgado started a comeback in men’s singles, with a 5-2 victory over Jan-Michael Gambill. The win included a highlight-reel point, where Delgado managed to return a pair of overhead smashes from Gambill. The Lobsters player then tried a drop shot, which Delgado got to just in time to rip a backhand winner down the line.

“You always have a chance to come back,” said Delgado, who leads WTT in men’s singles winning percentage with his 58-38 games record (60.4%). “That’s one of the good things about Team Tennis. I knew that I could change the momentum if I had a good start and beat Gambill like I did. We still had a shot at it, and I think it worked out well. We almost did it.”

Osterloh and Michaela Pastikova then turned out a 5-3 victory over Navratilova and Raquel Kops-Jones, pulling the Breakers within 15-11 headed into the final set.

All eyes turned to Delgado and Van’t Hof. They won their seventh straight men’s doubles set, 5-2, over Hadad and Gambill to pull the Breakers within a single game, 17-16.

Break Hadad’s serve in overtime, and the match would head to a super-tiebreaker. But Delgado and Van’t Hof couldn’t quite do it. After losing the first two points, Hadad won four in a row to send the Lobsters away with the victory.

“It’s tough,” said Delgado, the five-year Breakers veteran. “In men’s doubles, it’s tougher to [come back from a deficit]. We thought we would have been ahead. That’s why we played the men’s doubles last, but they changed everything. We didn’t expect to be down by nine [games] in the first two sets.”

It will be an uphill battle for the Breakers to win out. The Breakers host the John McEnroe-led New York Sportimes tonight at 7 in their final home match.

Newport Beach is then on the road at first-place Kansas City in the regular-season finale on Wednesday.

The WTT playoffs begin Thursday at Sacramento, continuing with the two semifinals on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The championship match is scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m., also at Sacramento.

“We still have chances, but I think this was one of the matches we should have won,” Delgado said. “New York is really tough, with John McEnroe even tougher, then we have Kansas City.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at matthew.szabo@latimes.com.