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by Christopher Gerby After running their road record to a perfectly awful 0-5 with a loss to the lowly Philadelphia Freedoms, the New York Buzz returned to the friendly confines of Schenectady's MVP Stadium. The team is, by any reasonable standard, in shambles. Doubles specialist Don Johnson is still AWOL with a wrist injury. Rising star Shenay Perry is fresh off a humbling 5-1 loss to unheralded Elena Tatarkova. And Justin Bower, the team's emotional core, came down with nasty flu-like symptoms on the way back from Philly. Not a promising state of affairs for the Buzz as they prepared to face the Delaware Smash, the league's only undefeated team. A key to the surprising success of the Smash has been the play of Liezel Huber and Samantha Reeves, WTT's top-ranked women's doubles tandem. The irony of that would not be lost on anyone who witnessed their gamesmanship-drenched battle in Schenectady last summer. At the time, Huber described Reeves as "very annoying," but that was back when Liezel was still a member of the Buzz. Speaking of which, the team's failure to retain her services is a point of some consternation. "The day before the draft I still thought I was coming back, just because I hadn't had word that I wasn't," Liezel told us. "I'm sad that I'm not back. It's nothing of my doing... I love this town and I loved the other team members, so it was very surprising and very sad for me that I didn't come back, but in the same breath, I joined a great team and made new friends." First set: men's singles -- Justin Bower vs. Paul Goldstein After splitting a pair of singles meetings on this same court last year, Justin Bower of the Buzz and Paul Goldstein of the Smash settled in for the rubber match. The early games went with serve, but not as comfortably as the scores would make one think. They were both grinding out there, sparring their way through patient, deep-hitting rallies. Leading 3-2, Bower had his best chance to break, pulling ahead 30-40. A nice rally ended when Bower netted a backhand, so Game 6 would come down to a singer winner-takes-all point. It was a classic, with Bower controlling the action until Goldstein came up with a spectacular running forehand pass on the dead run. All of his Smash teammates, along with coach Brad Dancer, jumped to their feet in unison as Goldstein raised a triumphant clenched fist. An exchange of holds after that forced the set into a tiebreak. It started very poorly for the ailing Bower, who blew a routine smash, yanked a forehand wide, and framed a backhand. Goldstein added insult to illness, executing a drop volley with underspin to go ahead 4 points to 0. Facing a handful of set points, Bower dumped a half-volley in the net. The 5-0 tiebreak win for Goldstein was a lopsided end to what had been a closely contested, entertaining clash. OVERALL SCORE: SMASH 5, BUZZ 4 Second set: women's doubles -- De Villiers/Perry vs. Huber/Reeves The "back row rowdies" (four boisterous young men who are always perched at the top of the grandstands on the scoreboard side) threatened to steal the show from the players in this set. They sang, chanted, taunted the opponents, supported the Buzz, and otherwise drew as much attention to themselves as possible. Huber and Reeves, meanwhile, played some very sharp doubles to take a 3-2 lead for Delaware. Shenay Perry saved a break point in Game 6, but groaned loudly after reflexing a volley wide to fall behind 2-4. Before long, it was set point. Reeves directed a smash at young Perry, who blocked the ball wide and gave her racket an angry end-over-end bounce. The Huber/Reeves express rolls on, 5 games to 2. OVERALL SCORE: SMASH 10, BUZZ 6 Third set: men's doubles -- Bower/Rudman vs. Goldstein/Humphries Friends for the past 15 years, Justin Bower and Shaun Rudman won in their first two appearances as a WTT doubles team. Would the third time be a charm? Sure looked like it after Bower held at love and Rudman hit a blistering return down the line for a 15-40 lead against Scott Humphries in Game 2. Humphries battled back to 40-40, however, and won the game when Bower accidentally clocked his partner in the back of the head with a return. This was a source of obvious disappointment for one of the back row rowdies, who screamed, "The Buzz is my only passion! I love you, Nannie!" (Nannie de Villiers, who wasn't even playing in this set, looked up and smiled.) Without another break point in sight, the set advanced to a tiebreak.
Fourth set: mixed doubles -- De Villiers/Rudman vs. Huber/Humphries With Justin Bower under the weather and already in street clothes by the end of intermission, Shaun Rudman got the call for mixed doubles. If you're scoring at home, this would be the Buzz's fifth different mixed doubles combo (Johnson/de Villiers, Becker/Perry, Becker/de Villiers, Bower/de Villiers, Rudman/de Villiers) in ten tries. Early indications are it's not a keeper. With Scott Humphries absolutely murdering the ball and Liezel Huber painting the corners with her serves, Delaware jumped out to a 3-0 lead. An overrule went against the Buzz in Game 4, prompting a strenuous argument from Nannie de Villiers, who's been a picture of simmering frustration all season. She held her serve, though, and the Buzz changed ends, greeted on the other side of the court by the back row rowdies. Their ranks had swelled to six, with a woman now in their midst. (Curiously, though, she's not the one who yelled, "I love you, Rudman!") Humphries held for 4-1, the game ending on a bizarrely bad line call. Nannie once again got in the face of umpire Candy Pantano, who's been on the box for all but one of New York's home matches this season. The exchange looked genuinely heated on both sides, with Pantano finally snapping, "I saw the ball out; let's play" and De Villiers replying, "You have no eyesight." Rudman kept Buzz hopes alive, holding for 2-4. ("How do they fit a tennis court in Delaware?" one of the rowdies wondered aloud, getting a laugh from Paul Goldstein and Brad Dancer.) Shaun then played a truly inspired return game, getting to 15-40 with a topspin lob winner and putting away a high backhand volley on the next point for 3-4. Alas, the Buzz lost all of their momentum when the rowdies removed their shirts. "Topless fans support the Buzz!" they bellowed, shortly before De Villiers coughed up a double fault to end the set 5-3. OVERALL SCORE: SMASH 20, BUZZ 13 Fifth set: women's singles -- Shenay Perry vs. Samantha Reeves Amused by her wildly enthusiastic fans, Nannie de Villiers actually clambered into the stands and was shoulder to shoulder with the back row rowdies as the final set began! Like the hex Bill Clinton put on Andre Agassi at the French Open, Nannie's presence in the crowd did nothing to help Shenay Perry's cause. She squandered a 40-15 lead with a double fault and two unforced errors, getting her serve broken right off the bat. Game 2 saw Wisconsin native Samantha Reeves let a lob bounce before calmly smashing an overhead from the baseline. A big smile on her face, Reeves turned to Paul Goldstein and said, "I learned that from you!" Sam held for 2-0 and Nannie decided she'd had enough of the bird's eye view, returning to the court as one of the rowdies asked, "Can I have your number?" An exchange of holds took the set score to 3-1 and the overall tally to 23-14. "10 more games! 10 more games!" chanted the rowdies, full of sarcastic optimism. Game 5 saw Umpire Pantano actually hold up play so she could scold Nannie de Villiers, who'd apparently made a snide comment between points. Witnessing this, Shenay rhetorically asked, "Why are we always in trouble?" Two points later, she double faulted to concede another break. Perry lofted the ball into the trees by the parking lot, earning her team's second code violation...and troubling one of the rowdies, who remarked "Hey, my car's out there!" Reeves closed out the set 5 games to 1, sealing the deal when Perry weakly sliced a backhand into the net on match point. FINAL SCORE: SMASH 25, BUZZ 14 Let's not even talk about the Buzz, who at 2-8 have already clinched a losing record for 2003. Of greater importance are the 9-0 Delaware Smash, vying for the league's first perfect season since the Newport Beach Dukes ran the table 14-0 in 1994. "We're not thinking about staying undefeated," Liezel Huber insisted after her team took all five sets from the Buzz. "We're just thinking about playing who we're playing at that time, frankly." On a lighter note, I asked Huber if she's still traveling with her little dog Sam, who was a big hit with the fans last season. "Yeah, they're home right now. We had a tough time coming back from England, so my husband and him stayed home. We miss him. Everybody misses him!" Having graduated from Stanford with a degree in Human Biology, Paul Goldstein is one of the world's brighter athletes. He's also on a par with Kim Clijsters among the sport's most prolific, notebook-filling talkers. Rather than attempt to condense Goldy's wisdom, I'll present you with a transcript of our post-match Q & A... On The Line: Your team is 9-0 now, without a marquee name. Has team chemistry been a big factor in that? Paul Goldstein: Absolutely. We all get along really well. Three of us, minus Liezel, played on the same team last year. We started last year 0-4 and then we ended up 8-6, so we won eight of our last ten. 52 weeks in between seasons, but for some reason we were able to maintain the momentum we kinda started last year. And Liezel has just been a godsend. She's put her stamp on both the women's doubles and the mixed doubles right away. I think they're first or second in both of those. (note: Delaware does lead the league in both events) She's just been a perfect complement to the three of us returning from last year, so I think team chemistry has been great. It's been important. We all support each other quite well, I'd say. We all get along quite well. One thing about the season, getting off to a good start is important. If you feel like you're out of it in terms of the standings, it's harder to stay positive; it's harder to be energetic; it's harder to be supportive. Getting off to a good start, winning a couple big matches early on, it's frankly a lot easier to mesh personalities. Not that I think we would have had a hard time anyway. I mean, we all do get along great, genuinely. But the winning has made things a lot easier. On The Line: Already this season, you've played guys like Roddick and Blake. Is that a pretty good test of where your game's at these days? Paul Goldstein: Yeah, I mean, this format -- which I really enjoy and it's so fun -- it's a tough gauge of where you are, because... On The Line: It's so quick? Paul Goldstein: It is SO quick. No-ad scoring, anything can really happen. I will say it's beneficial in the long run in terms of valuing each point. I think you can take that when you're done in Team Tennis and use that as an advantage. But I'd say it's a hard gauge as to where you are, just because it's so quick and anything can kinda happen. And those guys, they only play one or two matches for Team Tennis, and they come in just swinging from the hip. It's not the best gauge for where you are, but it certainly helps with confidence. On The Line: We've got some pretty unusual fans here this season... Paul Goldstein: Oh, they're great. Great. We had no problem with them whatsoever. I thought that it was very fun and that's really the essence of Team Tennis. And if you come to Delaware, you'll see some of our guys get after it pretty good. I think it was great. The only thing I was surprised with is they were doing all of that stone cold sober. No road trip to Delaware for me, unfortunately. Your intrepid reporter will be right back at MVP Stadium on Monday night as the Buzz seek revenge against the Philadelphia Freedoms. |