Capitals Fall Short of WTT Postseason
Wayne Bryan’s Sacramento Capitals reached the World TeamTennis semis in ‘08, only to falter to a 6-8 overall record in their recently completed campaign. Close matches kept the perennially strong team from avoiding just their second losing season in their 24-season existence.
“If ‘if’s’ and ‘but’s’ were candy and nuts, it would be Merry Christmas,” Bryan said by phone from Washington, D.C., where he was holding youth clinics in conjunction with the ATP Legg Mason tournament.
Hometown standout Sam Warburg and Angela Haynes, the league MVP with Deleware in ‘06, provided the top efforts of the year. A graduate of Jesuit H.S. in nearby Carmichael before going on to becoming a Stanford standout, Warburg won his first four matches of the year against top competition.
But doubles account for 60 percent of the league’s matches, and the Caps faltered in key doubles matches as the team tried different lineups. The most consistent partnership came from Haynes and Coco Vandeweghe, who played on all matches together over the brief three-week season.
There were still highlights. Among Haynes’ victories was a 5-1 victory against Venus Williams, who played for the Philadelphia Freedoms (WTT matches feature first-to-five game sets). The Caps’ season featured an appearance by Michael Chang, playing his first WTT action in this the 20th anniversary of his landmark French Open title.
A capacity crowd of 5,000 filled the stands in July when the Kansas City Explorers and twins Bob and Mike Bryan came to town (specifically the Caps’ stadium Roseville). Playing against their dad’s side, the twins won their doubles match in K.C.’s victory. The pair’s band later rocked the roof off the nearby Cheesecake Factory that night during a live performance, with Bob (keyboards) and Mike (drums).
“They’ve been playing music together for 25 years,” Wayne Bryan said. “They’ll probably keep going for a while too.”
CSU-Stanislaus is Back (In a Big Way)
“This is the No. 1 song in Turlock, California,” Bob Weir says on the Grateful Dead’s ‘72 live album, introducing a European audience to Truckin — and the tastes of Stanislaus County.
Left for dead during a previous economic downturn, Turlock-based Cal State Stanislaus tennis can be proud of its recent turnaround. The Warrior women this spring completed an inspiring season after being without an intercollegiate program since ‘91. Stanislaus State (10-4 overall, 7-3 conference) placed second in the CCACC, coming up strong in a late four-team race where only two from CCAC qualified for the NCAA D2 playoffs.
Verena Preikschas was named the CCAA MVP, the German national compiling an unbeaten singles streak that lasted from October until May. Three others made all-conference. Among those was freshman Heather Cotter, an alum of Turlock’s Pitman H.S. and a No. 6 singles player whose three-set victory in 100-degree heat clinched a key 5-4 victory late in the season against Cal Poly-Pomona. The Warriors held off both Pomona and Sonoma State to reach the D2 Regionals, where they fell to conference champ BYU-Hawaii in the opening round.
The Japan-bashing early ‘90s recession forced Stanislaus State to cut an already small athletic budget by about 10 percent, forcing the athletic department to cut employees and its men’s and women’s tennis program.
Jack Lackey — now a teaching pro at a club in Modesto — had the unfortunate luck of losing two jobs in succession, first as coach before being laid off as an events management assistant.
So it went as Cal State schools struggled amid bad economic times (sound familiar?). The Warriors were then part of the non-scholarship Northern California Athletic Conference, which joined UC-Davis with a host of other CSU system schools. However, Chico State, CSU-Hayward (now East Bay) and San Francisco State no longer play intercollegiate tennis. There’s still no men’s team in Turlock, but here’s to Stanislaus and CCAC tennis rival Sonoma State bucking the trend.
