New York Buzz vs. Hartford FoxForce
by Christopher Gerby
A long evening at Schenectady's Central Park was scheduled to begin with
Monica Seles participating in a 5 PM press conference. Seles would be
the first big star in town this season, leading the 2-2 Hartford
FoxForce against the 2-2 Buzz. However, as of 5:15, there was still
no sign of Monica. Word came down that her flight from the Hamptons
was delayed, so her four teammates (Magdalena Maleeva, Sonya Jeyaseelan,
and the Jensen brothers) fielded questions instead.
Seles and Maleeva had just played doubles together for the first
time, losing 5-0 in the final set of Thursday night's road loss
to the New York Hamptons. "We choked" was Maleeva's succinct
take on that effort. I asked whether it would be her or Jeyaseelan in the
lineup tonight and couldn't get a straight answer. "It's a secret,"
quipped Luke Jensen. "It's a game time decision. We're gonna see
how the racquets are strung." Maleeva explained that last bit by
letting us know "last night in the Hamptons, the stringer, he was
reading the manual." Alrighty then. Long-time fans of the Buzz will
be pleased to hear the update we got on Rachel Jensen, an original
member of the team whose bubbly, flirtatious personality made up for
her meager tennis skills during the 1995 Team Tennis season.
"Rachel's doing good. She's 28 now and she actually still walks
around in the Bees outfit," said Luke of his little sister. "She has
a 2-year-old now and is living in Atlanta, Georgia, having a lot of
fun."
Visiting teams usually warm up for the matches by practicing on the
stadium court. However, around 6:30 the FoxForce -- including Seles --
could be found a bit off the beaten path, hitting on two of
the public courts. Only a couple dozen fans watched through a chain
link fence as Monica weakly hit a few one-handed forehands and received
some treatment from the trainer. Seles eventually departed via golf
cart and joined her team on the sidelines for the scheduled 7 o'clock
start. However, mere minutes after waving to the crowd and sitting down,
Monica abruptly left the court...and never returned. After nearly 20
minutes, Hartford coach Paul Assaiante took a microphone and addressed
the crowd, letting them know Monica would be unable to play. As it
turns out, she came down with a nasty case of food poisoning in the
Hamptons and "threw up six times this morning," unable to even stand
at times. Assaiante praised her for gamely trying to give it a go
this evening, a sentiment which drew some applause. Despite paying
as much as $36 (up from the usual $10) to see Seles in action, the
Schenectady patrons were quite understanding about the whole thing. A
handful of fans requested (and were given) refunds at the start of
the match, but the vast majority stayed. General manger Nitty Singh has
decided to reward those ticket-holders by offering them free admission
to July 20th's match against Delaware.
First set -- mixed doubles: Bhupathi/De Villiers vs. L Jensen/Jeyaseelan
The upside of losing Seles was the opportunity to see Sonya Jeyaseelan,
a player so energetic and vocal that she may well become an honorary
Jensen by the end of Hartford's season. The men each held serve to open
matters, as "Dual Hand Luke" got to 1-1 with a left-handed ace. Early
in the third game, Jeyaseelan cut across the net to knock off a volley
and her momentum carried her all the way to the Hartford bench.
Making like Hale Irwin at golf's US Open, Jeyaseelan exchanged high
fives with Maggie and Murphy, high stepping all the way. Hartford
ultimately broke Nannie de Villiers in that game after Bhupathi
netted a forehand volley. "Yes! Come on!" Jeyaseelan shouted while
pumping her fist. Game 4 featured De Villiers accidentally clocking
umpire Candy Pantano with an errant return. "You can default her
right now," Luke Jensen deadpanned to Pantano. "Get her out. I checked in
the rule book." Nannie was allowed to keep playing, of course, but
Jeyaseelan held serve for a 3-1 lead.
Bhupathi authoritatively smashed away a Jeyaseelan lob in Game 5,
but Luke kept giving Sonya positive reinforcement, telling her "I love
that. That was the right shot." Jensen was being just as nice to the
ball boys, alternately calling one of them "rock star," "dude," and
"champ." It made for some interesting theater as the FoxForce kept
their lead, on serve at 4-3. Jeyaseelan faced a break point in Game 8,
but the scrappy Toronto native saved it with a service winner and
shook her fist again. The game would be decided in a tense 40-all
"game point" (Team Tennis uses no-ad scoring). It came down to a
tricky overhead for Jensen, who attempted to hit it while airborne
and falling backwards. The ball landed wide and Luke landed flat on
his back. It was a rather scary moment, but the 35-year-old was fine.
Unfortunately for him, the set was now tied 4-4 and would be decided
in a first-to-five-points tiebreaker...
- Bhupathi service winner -- 1-0 NEW YORK
- Jensen backhand return just wide -- 2-0 NEW YORK
- Flying backhand swing volley winner by Jeyaseelan -- 2-1 NEW YORK
- Jensen nets a low backhand volley -- 3-1 NEW YORK
- Jeyaseelan breaks a string while ripping a forehand at Bhupathi,
who reflexes the ball into the net -- 3-2 NEW YORK
- De Villiers double fault -- 3-3
- Jeyaseelan skips into the air and grimaces after her two-handed
forehand hits the tape -- 4-3 NEW YORK
- High backhand volley winner by Jensen -- 4-4
- Bhupathi hits an overhead smash right at Jensen, who flicks a
defensive lob well long -- 5-4 NEW YORK
The fans could be forgiven for not thinking about Seles at all during
that set, arguably the most entertaining played in Schenectady thus
far in 2001. It was a bitter pill for Hartford to swallow, as they'd
squandered three set points.
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 5, HARTFORD 4
Second set -- women's singles: Jill Craybas vs. Magdalena Maleeva
No team in the league could boast a better backup singles player than
Hartford, who were able to replace Seles with the world's 14th ranked
woman (wrongly introduced by the chair umpire as "Manuela
Maleeva"). However, the substitution didn't throw Jill Craybas
off her game. She was matching Maggie shot for shot in the early
going, even firing up the crowd by rifling a backhand winner down the line
on the dead run. Maleeva did break for a 2-1 lead, but Craybas broke
right back and then held easily for 3-2. Jill was holding her own
in the long exchanges of deep groundstrokes, so Maggie began mixing
up her game. She made several net approaches and hit a pair of
winning drop shots in a hold for 3-3. Two holds later, it was 4-4
and time for the night's second tiebreak. This one wasn't nearly as
suspenseful as the first. Craybas played brilliantly, winning it 5
points to 0 as one last Maleeva lob fell long. "I think it's probably
the best match I've played so far," Craybas said afterwards. "I
got into a good groove."
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 10, HARTFORD 8
Third set -- women's doubles: Craybas/De Villiers vs. Jeyaseelan/Maleeva
Another intriguing matchup loomed as two of the WTA Tour's most
intense competitors teamed up to face the Buzz's solid tandem of Jill
Craybas and Nannie de Villiers. Wearing her hair in fetching pigtails
tonight, De Villiers held easily to start it off. In the next game,
Maleeva was called for a foot fault and then buried her second serve in
the net. Dr. Sound commented by playing his "Twilight Zone" music
clip, only stopping it when Maleeva raised her racquet in his
direction and said, "That's OK." The Bulgarian went on to hold for
1-1. Craybas then fell behind 15-40 and pushed a half-volley into
the net on break point to trail 1-2. Yet again, the FoxForce were
up a break. Jeyaseelan looked to make this one stick, opening Game 4
with an ace. Dr. Sound replied with a clip of Shania Twain singing
"that don't impress me much." Sonya immediately looked up
and said, "That's too bad. I'll do it again and maybe that'll
impress you." She failed to make good on that vow, however -- the
Buzz broke her serve to make it 2-all.
De Villiers saw her racquet fly right out of her sweaty hand on a
fault in Game 5, but she recoved to win the game at 15. Subsequent
holds by Maleeva, Craybas, and Jeyaseelan forced the evening's third
consecutive tiebreak. This one opened inauspiciously for
the Buzz. De Villiers double faulted and again blamed a wet grip,
furiously wiping her hand on a towel. After another fault, she
wiped her hand on the court! That didn't help, either, as she missed
the second serve and bounced her racquet in frustation. Without hitting
a ball, the FoxForce were up 2-0. They never looked back, winning
the 'breaker 5-0 when Maleeva put away a high forehand volley. I
flagged Maggie down after tonight's match and asked her about playing with
fellow fist-pumper Jeyaseelan. "We are good friends with Sonya, so
we like each other's company. We had a good time and we played
pretty well." Does this mean Sonya has forgiven Maggie for mercilessly
drubbing her 6-1, 6-0 in Montreal last summer? "I think so," Maleeva
replied with a smile.
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 14, HARTFORD 13
Fourth set -- men's singles: Justin Bower vs. Murphy Jensen
The most interesting thing about this set (aside from the rarity of
seeing two left-handers square off) was Justin Bower's headwear.
After his bandana on Wednesday night and visor on Friday night, now
he was sporting a red headband which looked like it may have been
pilfered from Patrick Rafter's closet. Alas, Bower wasn't playing like
Rafter this evening. In fact, he was openly frustrated with his
inability to make an early impression on Murphy Jensen's serve. Murphy
is the less accomplished of the Jensen brothers, though, and he was
due to crumble sooner or later. The collapse came in a sloppy Game 5,
where Bower broke at 15. Jensen then became uncharacteristically
agitated when an overrule went against him in Game 6. He dubbed it a
"s*** call" and was lucky to avoid an audible obscenity warning. Later
in the set, he even mixed it up with Dr. Sound, asking the announcer/DJ
"You wanna play, big mouth?" In the end, it was Bower winning eight
of his last nine service points to close out a pretty comfortable,
unspectacular 5-3 victory.
OVERALL SCORE: NEW YORK 19, HARTFORD 16
Fifth set -- men's doubles: Bhupathi/Bower vs. L Jensen/M Jensen
If the Buzz's gradually improving men's doubles team could win this
final set, they'd clinch an overall win over the FoxForce. The
Jensens were looking pretty serious, however, and surely wanted to
avenge Thursday's 5-3 loss to Bhupathi and Bower. After all four players
succeeded in their initial service games, the shot of the
night was authored by Justin Bower in Game 5. Running down a ball which
had dribbled off the tape, Bower lunged around the post and flicked an
obscenely angled backhand cross-court. Sailing almost perfectly
parallel to the net, it landed in the opposite doubles alley for a
clean winner. Even the Jensens had to applaud with their racquets.
Bower held for 3-2, but Luke Jensen matched him at 3-3, drawing a
loud "Yeah, boys!" from Sonya Jeyaseelan, now excelling in the
unofficial role of team cheerleader.
Bhupathi held at love for 4-3, ending the game with a masterful topspin
lob. The Jensens refused to buckle, though, playing effectively
enough at the net to be called "Great Wall of China!" by Jeyaseelan.
Murphy held for 4-4 and the fans would be treated to one more
tiebreak, which Hartford needed to win to force overtime. Bower claimed
the first three points all by himself with a pair of strong serves
and a winning (albeit slightly mis-hit) backhand return. The Jensens
took the next three points, including two against Bhupathi's serve.
A forehand pass from Bower handcuffed Murphy, bringing up match point
at 4-3. This time Bower drilled a forehand laser at Luke, who could
only stick a racquet out and block the ball into the ground.
FINAL SCORE: NEW YORK 24, HARTFORD 20
Even without Monica Seles in the lineup, Hartford definitely had their
chances in this one. "There were four tiebreaks, so it could
have gone either way," observed Magdalena Maleeva. Luke Jensen put
the blame squarely on himself and his brother. "Again, a situation
this season where Murphy and I have let down the
team. We've gotta win our men's singles; we've gotta win our men's
doubles; and the mixed doubles." I asked if the Jensens were hoping for a
wild card into the US Open and Luke was realistic. "We have to do a
lot better than we are now. We haven't played well throughout the
season. We have to get wins. You've gotta beat teams and right now
we're not doing that." Meanwhile, Luke had nothing but kind words
for ailing teammate Monica Seles, describing her as "one of the
greatest people that I've met in that type of position. She could be
high maintenance and is extremely low maintenance. Such a team
player throughout the matches we've played together and traveling and
helping with the bags... She really tried to play, but what can you
do?"
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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