TEAMTENNIS : Dukes Face Sacramento in Playoffs

NEWPORT BEACH —  The Newport Beach Dukes and Sacramento Capitals, who both squandered chances to take the World TeamTennis West Division title, meet in a divisional semifinal playoff match at 7 tonight at the John Wayne Tennis Club.

The winner will play at Vail Thursday for a berth in Saturday’s championship match.

The Dukes lost two of their final three regular-season matches to finish in second place with a 9-5 record, one match ahead of the 8-6 Capitals. Sacramento lost its final two matches.

Debbie Graham, the Fountain Valley resident who plays for Sacramento, is questionable for tonight’s match because she was diagnosed as having chicken pox Saturday.

If Graham is unable to play, she will be replaced by Ann Henricksson, 32, who has won four doubles titles during her career, including one with Patty Fendick, Sacramento’s other female player.

Fendick, Graham and Kimberly Po, who filled in when Graham missed the early part of the season because she was in the Federation Cup, combined for the league’s best record in women’s doubles.

Fendick, a two-time NCAA champion from Stanford currently ranked 53rd in the world, had the league’s second-best women’s singles record, trailing only Martina Navratilova of Atlanta. Fendick also helped Sacramento to the league’s second-best mixed doubles record.

Sacramento also holds a statistical edge over the Dukes in men’s singles, where Steve DeVries had the sixth-best record, compared to 10th-rated Rikard Bergh, and in men’s doubles, where DeVries and David MacPherson were fourth and Rone Bathman and Bergh seventh.

“I don’t see any places where we’re going to get a big lead,” Dukes Coach Greg Patton said.

The Dukes beat the Capitals in both meetings this season, 25-22 in Sacramento July 11 and 25-23 in Newport Beach July 24.