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by Christopher Gerby If the New York Buzz were to extend their winning streak to 6, they'd need to avoid a letdown against one of their previous victims, the Delaware Smash. The odds of a repeat looked good with teen phenom Maria Sharapova out of Delaware's lineup, laid up in the hotel with a fever. Taking her place was 33-year-old veteran Jolene Watanabe, who had actually been on hand as a TV commentator during the Buzz's Sunday night win over the New York Hamptons. The regular Buzz lineup stayed intact, but men's singles dynamo Justin Bower was under the weather with a stomach virus...oh, and Kimberly Madison (who sings the national anthem before most of New York's home games) had a nasty looking tape job around her wrist and thumb. First set: men's doubles -- Bhupathi/Bower vs. Goldstein/Humphries After guiding Xavier Malisse to the semifinals of Wimbledon, coach Craig Kardon still believes he can motivate the 2-4 Smash to some wins. That attitude seems to have rubbed off on Samantha Reeves, who was much more chipper and exuberant tonight than in the previous Buzz-Smash encounter. As Paul Goldstein and Scott Humphries took the court, Reeves spurred them on with a cheer of "Let's go, guys, come on! Smash! Yeah!" Nonetheless, Justin Bower and Mahesh Bhupathi jumped right out to a 3-0 lead, with a masterful Bhupathi lob having keyed a break of the Humphries serve. Goldstein survived a 40-40 scare with a service winner, but was still shaking his head unhappily as the teams switched sides. In the most reassuring voice she could muster, Reeves told him "We can get 'em back." A few points later, Kardon chimed in with "Let's go, Goldie. All you." However, it was Bower knocking off a forehand volley to hold for 4-1. The most interesting part of Game 6 was the sound guy's decision to play part of the "Peter Gunn" theme after two consecutive points for no readily apparent reason. (Sam Reeves wondered aloud, "Didn't you just play that?") Humphries held for 2-4 and let out a shout of "come on!" after cracking a backhand return to open up a 15-30 edge on Bhupathi's serve. Mahesh was then a bit too cute with an angled touch volley, pushing it wide to give Delaware break points. A deep first serve from the Indian was blocked back into the net by Humphries for 30-40. Goldstein then got a look at a second serve, but badly shanked his return into the stands. The 40-40 point would be critical, either giving the Buzz a set or the Smash a break. The former came to pass when Bower dinked in a winning drop volley. OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 5, DELAWARE 2 Second set: men's singles -- Justin Bower vs. Paul Goldstein Bower and Goldstein produced a close, exciting set of tennis last week, but the rematch was all Goldstein early on. After mixing in some daring serve-volley stuff on Saturday night, he was more content on this occasion to rally from the backcourt. The patience paid dividends as he opened up a 3-0 lead over a lost looking Bower. Justin made three consecutive unforced errors to open Game 4, throwing his racket at his chair after one of the mistakes. He had to run Goldstein all over the court just to win a point for 15-40. He followed that with an ace, drawing a shout of "That's the Justin we know and love" from the stands. Bower put away a tricky smash for 40-40. The final point of the game saw the South African stretched wide, but he came up with a down-the-line forehand that evaded Goldstein and got the Buzz on the board. Dropping the "Slam Man" shtick from last night, the PA announcer said "It's time to fill this stadium with Bower power" during the changeover. The fans responded, but Justin simply wasn't healthy enough to win many of the long rallies Goldstein was lulling him into. Paul only dropped one point on serve in the rest of the set, closing out a 5-2 win. Afterwards, I asked him about his change in strategy against Bower. "I was able to dictate from the first ball, I think, a little bit. The serve-and-volley is a good play for me, but last time it got me in trouble just with a little poor execution, so I did stay back. I was definitely more patient tonight and that seemed to work." OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 7, DELAWARE 7 Third set: mixed doubles -- Bhupathi/De Villiers vs. Humphries/Reeves In a weird break from mixed doubles tradition, each man dropped his opening service game tonight. Nannie de Villiers nearly followed suit, double faulting her way to 30-40 in Game 3. But the Buzz battled back, with Bhupathi skying for a smash on game point and engaging his partner in a spirited high five. Mahesh continued with some more great play in the following game -- so much so that an impressed Liezel Huber turned around and shared a smile with Bhupathi's fiancee. However, Samantha Reeves bailed herself out of trouble with a clutch serve for 2-2. Successful service games from Bhupathi, Humphries, and De Villiers followed in rapid succession. On serve at 3-4, Reeves coughed up a double fault and was furious with the call. When the ball came back to her, she took an angry swing and ripped a line drive dangerously close to umpire Candy Pantano. The shocked, apologetic look on Samantha's face made it obvious that she wasn't intending to harm Pantano (although Jonathan Stark and Todd Reid from last night's losing team might have deemed such an instinct justifiable). In fact, she immediately dropped her argument over the fault call and regained her composure. At 15-30, Humphries and Reeves kept a rally alive with defensive lobs and finally won the point when Bhupathi whacked an overhead long. Reeves raised her arms in triumph, then sprinted over to the Delaware bench and high-fived Paul Goldstein, who gave her a congratulatory pat on the butt. A wicked backhand return by De Villiers got the Buzz to set point, but she then pushed a volley long for 40-all. Humphries forced a tiebreak by launching a forehand at De Villiers, who could barely get a racket on it. Despite losing that opportunity, the Buzz grabbed a 3-1 lead in the tiebreak when Reeves couldn't handle a deep swinging volley from De Villiers. The lead was upped to 4-1 when Bhupathi pulled off an unreal roundhouse forehand reflex volley winner. (That's the best description I can manage -- it had to be seen to be fully appreciated.) Nannie de Villiers added the exclamation point, clinching a 5-1 win of the tiebreak with a service winner. OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 12, DELAWARE 11 Fourth set: women's singles -- Liezel Huber vs. Samantha Reeves The match got down to serious business with a hard-fought, evenly-matched set of women's singles. Advocates of on-court coaching would have been in hog heaven watching Nannie de Villiers shout instructions to Liezel Huber in their native tongue while Craig Kardon sent Samantha Reeves nuggets of wisdom like "be patient" and "play your game." They weren't the only ones talking -- Huber and Reeves themselves would often punctuate their winning groundstrokes by shrieking "yes!" or "come on!" There was even some gamesmanship involved, as Reeves kept shuffling her feet and tapping her racket on the court in a fairly blatant attempt to distract her opponent. (At one point, Huber stopped her pre-serve routine and shot a look at the fidgety, talkative Wisconsin native.) None of the drama involved a break of serve, though, so this baseline duel also culminated in a tiebreak...
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 16, DELAWARE 16 Fifth set: women's doubles -- De Villiers/Huber vs. Reeves/Watanabe Knowing that women's doubles was a weakness for the Smash, the home team opted to let this set anchor the match even before Maria Sharapova called in sick. Following a brief between-sets period which saw Mahesh Bhupathi lip-sync to Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" and Samantha Reeves freak out over a missing racket (only to have Scott Humphries assure her "this is the one you've been using all night"), the women went about breaking the deadlocked overall score. The air was thick with tension...unless you were Paul Goldstein. He spent much of the fifth set surreptitiously filling a squirt gun with water and firing it at Buzz coach Eric Kutner. Jolene Watanabe made some nice volleys early in her stint as the Smash's emergency replacement, but De Villiers and Huber held serve with relative ease to take a 2-1 lead. At 30-30 in Watanabe's service game, De Villiers framed an overhead, but it fluttered in for a lucky winner. Taking full advantage of the break point chance, Huber whipped a forehand at Watanabe, who couldn't react in time. A very fired up Nannie de Villiers served big in a love hold for 4-1. Reeves countered with a hold for 2-4, heeding Coach Kardon's advice of "keep hitting." De Villiers did squander the team's first match point with a botched volley, but at 40-15 Huber thumped a gnarly body serve which nearly knocked poor Jolene Watanabe over. Warming to their unfamiliar role as the Buzz's closing act, De Villiers and Huber had delivered a solid 5-2 victory. FINAL SCORE: NEW YORK 21, DELAWARE 18 As promised, I stopped Paul Goldstein for a one-on-one chat after the match. He admitted that Maria Sharapova's absence hampered Delaware's chances in this one. "We could've used her tonight, boy. Jolene stepped in for us at the last minute. It was really great of her to do that. We would've really been in bad off shape if she wasn't able to step in like that, so we certainly appreciate that very much. But we would've loved to have Maria out here. She's an exciting young girl." I asked "Goldie" if all the success Lleyton Hewitt's been having lately gives hope to smallish counterpunchers like himself. "Yeah. Everybody would like a little bit of the fight that Lleyton has in him. But after the last few years, everyone saying how the Philippoussis 6-foot-5 guy's gonna dominate the game, to see the best player in the world be a guy who weighs about 150 pounds is certainly encouraging to a guy who weighs about 155." Injuries have limited Goldstein's play for the past year, but "the last three or four weeks I'm starting to feel healthy. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do on a full year feeling healthy. I'm excited about playing." Alas, he doesn't hold out any hope for a wild card at the US Open. "I wish, but no, I don't think I'm gonna get it this year. In fact, I know I'm not gonna get it this year, but I'll just grind it out in the qualies. I think I had a better argument last year." Lastly, in case you were wondering, Paul has not kept in touch with Chelsea Clinton, whom he befriended during his days at Stanford. "Not too much, no. I saw her a couple years ago, but that's it." While the Smash limp along with a 2-5 record, the Buzz are flying high at 6-1, shooting for the league championship. "That's our goal," Liezel Huber freely admitted after the win. "Every match, every day we wake up, every evening we go to sleep, we think we're number one, we can win this thing, we can make the playoffs. This is the most intense team I've been in, but in the same breath, we have a lot of fun with it and motivate each other." If anything, the Buzz players may be getting along too well. "We say we're gonna go out for coffee and by the end of the evening, it's like two hours later, and it's 12 o'clock and we need to get in bed. That's been catching up with us the last few days." We'll see if the camraderie holds up -- the Buzz now embark on a road trip, playing three matches before returning to host the Springfield Lasers on July 22nd. |