The Orange County Breakers of World Team Tennis will begin their second season at UC Irvine's Bren Center Sunday with a 5 p.m. match against the Philadelphia Freedoms with a greater connection to Orange County than a year ago.
In response to fans who said "they wanted to see someone they knew," the Breakers drafted two players with Orange County ties -- Steve Johnson, an Orange High School graduate who won the 2011 and 2012 NCAA men's Division I singles championships while playing for USC, and Coco Vandeweghe, a Newport Beach resident, general manager Kerry Schneider said.
The Breakers also added Johnson's father, also named Steve, as an assistant coach, and hired a community relations director, Megan Broccolo, to reach out to area tennis clubs and groups. The elder Johnson operates the Steve Johnson Tennis Academy at Rancho San Clemente Tennis & Fitness Club.
Unlike last season, the Breakers will have two marquee opponents -- Andy Roddick, the world's top-ranked men's player from Nov. 3, 2003-Feb. 1, 2004, and twin brothers Bob and Mike Bryan, the men's doubles champions at each of the past four Grand Slam tournaments. The Breakers will play host to Roddick and his Springfield Lasers teammates Saturday and face the Bryans and the rest of the Texas Wild July 16.
The team was known as the Newport Beach Breakers from 2003-2011, playing at three venues. A change in the team's management from the Hoag Hospital Foundation to the league prompted the move to the Bren Center and the name change, Schneider said.
The Breakers had a theme night for each of their seven home matches last season. The approach this season is "let's do a few of these things, but really do them well," Schneider told City News Service.
"We didn't do any of those nights justice because we took on a little too much," Schneider said.
The Breakers will conduct a 40th anniversary celebration of Billie Jean King's victory over Bobby Riggs in the "Battle of the Sexes" Saturday with King in attendance; a first birthday party for the team's mascot FlutterFrog July 15, with the mascots for Chivas USA of Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association present; Military Appreciation Night July 21; and Fan Appreciation Night July 24, their final match of the season.
Matches in World Team Tennis, which began play in 1974, consist of one set each of men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles, with the team winning the most games winning the match.
-City News Service
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