New York Buzz vs. Delaware Smash
by Christopher Gerby
The New York Buzz left town on Monday night with a solid record of 4
wins and 2 losses. They returned to their home court on Friday at
just 4-4, following a tough 23-19 loss in Philadelphia and a lopsided
24-12 failure in Delaware. The Buzz managed to take just one set
against the Smash, squeaking out a tiebreak in mixed doubles. Just
two days later, they had a chance at revenge. Meanwhile, the Smash
were coming off an odd home match in which they were supposed to be
joined by Serena Williams, who instead dropped out, citing illness.
Coming in to save the day on short notice was none other than Martina
Navratilova. The legend's presence didn't help, though, as Delaware
was beaten by league powerhouse Philadelphia. With regular Mariaan de Swardt
back in the lineup, the Smash would look to repeat Wednesday night's
drubbing of the Buzz.
First set -- women's doubles: Craybas/De Villiers vs. De Swardt/Parkinson
One of those flukey let aces gave Nannie de Villiers a 40-30 lead in
the evening's first game. However, two points later Mariaan de
Swardt launched a wicked backhand winner down the middle of the court
to break for a 1-0 lead. The Buzz came right back with a break of De
Swardt, however, and Craybas held for 2-1. Jill and Nannie jumped all
over Holly Parkinson's serve in Game 4 and extended their lead to 3-1.
An exchange of love holds by the South Africans took the set to 4-2,
at which point John-Laffnie de Jager of the Smash brought a towel out
to his teammates (and playfully whipped Mahesh Bhupathi with it on his
way back to the bench). Any words of encouragement he may have had
proved useless, though -- Craybas served out the set at love, winning
it 5-2.
It was another good win for New York's female doubles tandem, who
put a mighty feather in their cap on Tuesday night by upsetting Lisa
Raymond and Rennae Stubbs. I asked Jill Craybas if that result
has given her and Nannie the confidence to take on any team. "Yeah,
we were pretty excited when we won that match. Like Mahesh and Justin
(Bower), we're getting a little bit more used to playing with each
other and knowing where each other are on the court."
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 5, DELAWARE 2
Second set -- men's singles: Justin Bower vs. Mike Sell
The second set got off to a noisy start when an annoying, persistent
car alarm began blaring in the background. Delaware's Mike Sell lobbed a ball in its
direction and got a big round of applause when (coincidentally or not)
the alarm was silenced about ten seconds later. Sell then went about
silencing the crowd with a love hold. Justin Bower held his own serve
and announcer Dr. Sound led the fans in some rythmic applause. Sell
exclaimed "no way!" when he looked to the sidelines and saw teammate
John-Laffnie de Jager loudly joining in. Mike was undeterred, playing
another immaculate service game for 2-1. But after struggling on the
road trip and the early going here, Justin Bower finally got in a
groove. He held for 2-all and then impressively broke Sell at love
to go up 3-2. Bower recorded two aces and a lovely topspin backhand
pass in Game 6, another hold. He finished Sell off just one game
later, breaking him again to win the set 5-2. It was quite a dramatic
turning of the tables, considering Sell beat Bower 5-3 two nights ago.
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 10, DELAWARE 4
Third set -- men's doubles: Bhupathi/Bower vs. De Jager/Sell
De Jager and Sell argued strenuously about a line call that "wasn't
even close" in the middle of this set's opening game, a Bower hold.
Dr. Sound decided John-Laffnie should be called "Lurch" (obviously
unaware that Magnus Larsson has cornered the market on that tennis
nickname) and tormented the 6' 4" doubles specialist by playing
"Addams Family" music between every point of Game 2. It apparently worked in distracting De Jager,
whose serve was broken at love. Bhupathi then held for 3-0, giving
New York a commanding 9-point advantage in the overall score. Smash
coach Brad Dancer tried to stay upbeat, though, and shouted "That's
great, guys!" after Sell held for 1-3.
A love hold from Bower made it
4-1 and put the ball back in De Jager's hands. He was relentlessly
picked on again by Dr. Sound, who this time played "If I Only Had a
Brain" from "The Wizard of Oz". John-Laffnie was a remarkably good
sport about the whole thing, even waving his racquet around like an
orchestra conductor. He went on to hold for 2-4, but things looked
grim for Delaware when Mahesh Bhupathi opened up a 40-0 lead in Game
7. Coach Dancer and Mariaan de Swardt even threw white towels onto
the court, signaling surrender. De Jager and Sell actually reeled
off winning three points in a row to stave off elimination, but
Bower finally put away an overhead to clich New York's third consecutive
5-2 win. What a difference two days make!
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 15, DELAWARE 6
Fourth set -- women's singles: Jill Craybas vs. Mariaan de Swardt
Holly Parkinson beat Jill Craybas 5-1 on Wednesday night, so I was
surprised to see Mariaan de Swardt called on for this set. De Swardt's
powerful serve and backhand slice once earned her a victory over Steffi
Graf, but she hasn't won a singles match on the WTA Tour all year.
Nonetheless, the move made sense to Craybas. "I wasn't too surprised
by that, because the courts are faster and Mariaan has a bigger
serve and hits a little bit bigger ball." De Swardt took advantage of
the quick hard court, piling up service winners on the way to 2-all.
Surprisingly, the next four games were all breaks, with Craybas hitting
some excellent backhands but failing to serve well. The set was
ultimately settled in a tiebreak, which featured three service winners
from De Swardt. She made her coach look wise, winning the tiebreak 5
points to 1. "It's hard to get a rhythm against her," Craybas said
about the loss. "She just kinda goes for everything."
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 19, DELAWARE 11
Fifth set -- men's doubles: Bhupathi/De Villiers vs. De Jager/De Swardt
Still trailing by eight points in the total score, Delaware had to
hope for a miracle (i.e. winning the fifth set and several consecutive
games in overtime). No miracle appeared to be forthcoming when
John-Laffnie de Jager had his serve broken yet again. That gave the
Buzz a 2-0 lead, which went to 3-0 when a splendid drop volley from Mahesh Bhupathi
finished off a Nannie de Villiers hold. After De Swardt and
Bhupathi held their serves, the pressure was on De Jager to extend this match.
He simply could not buy a first serve this evening, however. At 40-40
(a winner-take-all "game point" in Team Tennis), Bhupathi split the
Smash with a big backhand, completing an easy 5-1 win of the final
set. Amazingly, the Buzz managed to win by the exact same
overall score they lost by in their last match.
FINAL SCORE: NEW YORK 24, DELAWARE 12
"We were pretty upset about what happened" in Delaware on Wednesday night,
Mahesh Bhupathi said after the revenge win. "We went there expecting
to win and we got pretty much beaten up, so we came back and put in a
couple hours yesterday and put in an hour of practice this morning.
We were pretty sharp out there today." Jill Craybas admitted "we
took Delaware a little bit too lightly on Wednesday... I think we all
played a little bit better today." The team won't make the mistake of
looking ahead to next week's match against Jimmy
Connors and the Freedoms. "We usually like taking one match at
a time," Craybas said. Bhupathi isn't thinking about the playoff picture
either. "We were at 4-4 before today, so we don't really have too
many options. We just have to win pretty much every match we play if
we want to get to the playoffs. As long as we don't think about that
and just try to win every match, the playoffs will take care of itself."
I also had a nice post-match chat with Holly Parkinson, who seemed a
tad bewildered that anyone wanted to interview her. I asked
the 22-year-old American about playing with Martina Navratilova, with
whom she lost a set of doubles the previous night. "Oh, it was
exciting. It was a great experience. Very exciting. I was a little
nervous, but it was very fun." Speaking of fun, the Smash
(particularly that rascal John-Laffnie de Jager) at least seem to
enjoy themselves on the sidelines. "That's what it's all about, you
know, go out there and have a good time," said Parkinson. "Even when
you're playing terrible or you're exhausted from being on the road,
you can still just laugh and make fun with it." Lastly, I asked Holly
if she was confident about getting her WTA singles ranking (which has
fallen from a high of 85 at the end of last year to 130 at the moment) back up to
where it was in 2000. "Team Tennis is great, because you get in a good
groove, you play a lot of matches, get really good practice," she
replied. "At the end of the season I usually go out playing pretty
well."
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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