Zero playoff hopes

NEWPORT BEACH — John McEnroe was the marquee player during Tuesday night’s Newport Beach Breakers home finale at the Newport Beach Country Club.

But, as they have been countless times over the last four-plus years, all eyes were fixed on Ramon Delgado at the end.

Delgado was playing men’s singles against the New York Sportimes’ Jesse Witten, in the closest thing the Breakers have to a main event. And Delgado nearly delivered a stunning knockout after easily winning the final set.

But it was Witten who had the final answer, breaking Delgado’s serve to begin overtime as the Sportimes survived for an 17-15 victory that knocked the Breakers out of playoff contention.

Newport Beach (5-8) still has one match remaining tonight at first-place Kansas City, but the Breakers now can’t make one of the top two spots in the Western Conference. Sacramento (7-6) will now earn the second berth, but the Breakers will also lose out to Boston (7-7) on a wild-card berth going to the team with the fifth-best overall record.

“What can I say?” Delgado said after the Breakers dropped to 0-5 in matches decided by two games or less. “Almost. For the fifth time. Five matches that we should have won and we didn’t.”

Delgado, who leads World Team Tennis with a 63-40 record (61.2%) in men’s singles, had played consistently in winning the final set of the night over Witten, 5-1. It allowed the Breakers to rally from a 15-10 deficit to the Sportimes (10-3) after Lilia Osterloh lost in women’s singles to Milagros Sequera, 5-2.

All Delgado had to do was hold serve on the first game of overtime to send the match to a deciding super-tiebreaker. And, after falling in a 3-1 hole, he battled back to a 3-3 game point. On one of the points, a Delgado backhand hit the net and barely bounced over as the crowd went wild.

“I’ve been around Team Tennis a long time, and it’s tough to find somebody like Ramon,” Breakers Coach Trevor Kronemann said. “The guy has done his job every single night and he’s kept us in a ton of matches. He might be one of the best Team Tennis players in history. He’s just very solid and makes [his opponent] play.”

But, on the game point, it was Witten who took control, whipping a forehand winner down the line to end the match.

“I think he played good that game,” Delgado said. “He hit like three winners that game, and I didn’t make a lot of first serves. I’ve been going for it, and I did the same thing and it didn’t work. He was really aggressive on the second serve, and I couldn’t do anything. I probably had to put more first serves in, but I’d been going for it and it’d been working, so why change now?”

The Breakers, for the second consecutive night, fell into a big hole after two sets. This time, it was Osterloh and Michaela Pastikova falling to Hana Sromova and Sequera, 5-1, in women’s doubles. Sequera and McEnroe also topped Pastikova and Newport Beach native Kaes Van’t Hof, 5-2, in mixed doubles, putting the Breakers in a 10-3 hole.

But Delgado and Van’t Hof stormed back for their eighth men’s doubles victory in a row, 5-0, over McEnroe and Brian Wilson. McEnroe was so upset late in that set that he walked to his chair and began banging his racquet on top of his bag.

Another comical moment occurred as McEnroe was being heckled by Breakers fans in Section D. He stared at them, before speaking to fellow tennis legend Billie Jean King on the sidelines.

“Billie Jean, you’ve got to check their blood-alcohol level,” McEnroe said. “I’m worried about them.”

He then pretended to put a bottle, presumably alcoholic, to his mouth and staggered backward as the crowd laughed.

Kronemann, who will complete his second year as coach tonight at Kansas City, maybe could also use a drink after watching his team drop yet another close match.

“I thought we were going to pull through and at least get to the super-tiebreaker,” Kronemann said. “… It’s one of those seasons where it was like everything went against us. We had two queen cards with the dealer showing a five. Every time, we just didn’t seem to pull through and get that 21.”

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or by e-mail at [email protected].