New York Buzz vs. Delaware Smash
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...
- Untimely double fault from Reeves -- 1-0 BUZZ
- Side-to-side rally ends with Huber misfiring on a forehand -- 1-1
- Defensive forehand error by Reeves -- 2-1 BUZZ
- Huber screams "yes!" after unleashing an ace -- 3-1 BUZZ
- Forehand error by Huber ends a deep-hitting display -- 3-2 BUZZ
- Reeves rifles a winning backhand down the line -- 3-3
- Terrific angled backhand volley winner by an aggressive Reeves -- 4-3 SMASH
- Reeves's backhand return just misses the corner -- 4-4
- Huber nets a forehand approach shot on set point -- 5-4 SMASH
The narrow tiebreak loss left Liezel Huber feeling "pretty upset, because I'd
been winning my serves pretty easily." She also felt that her displays
of emotion throughout the set were out of character. "Justin (Bower) gets the
crowd involved and I think that helps him. I'm more a person that
likes to stay calm... When I get competitive, I get too intense." I
asked Huber what she made of the Samantha Reeves service return
antics. "Hat's off to Reeves, because she's a very tough competitor.
Needless to say, she is annoying on the court, but you can't let it
bother you, because if you let it bother you, then you're giving her
the advantage," Liezel explained in her endearing accent. "She's a very
nice girl off the court and I'm friends with her off the court, but I
don't particularly like or agree with what she does on the court, so
you just kinda give each other a stare."
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.
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Last updated 26 September 2015
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