San Diego's New Pro Tennis Team to Make Debut Tonight

The San Diego Aviators of World TeamTennis will make their debut tonight at the Valley View Casino Center, aiming to provide enough fun for fans to cause them to return.

"It's sports and entertainment meeting together," Aviators CEO Billy Berger told City News Service. "We have a real opportunity to really make this fun, where people walk away from this event and they say to themselves, 'That was really fun. It was great tennis, but it was fun.'

"If we can pull that off, that's going to make this have a two-, three- , five-, seven-, 12-year run."

Berger described the planned atmosphere at Aviators' matches as being like a "tennis party" where "a tennis match breaks out."

The fun elements include interactive booths around the arena and various contests between sets where fans participate in contests to win prizes, Berger said. Players will sign autographs for fans 16 and under following the matches.

The arena formerly known as the San Diego Sports Arena will be configured in what was described by team owner Russell Geyser as "an intimate seating venue" that will provide an "up-close setting for our fans."

Berger said averaging 2,500 fans for the season's seven home matches would be "fabulous."

A key difference between World TeamTennis and tournament tennis is that fans are allowed to cheer during points.

"As Billie Jean King puts it, leave your silence for after you leave the match," Berger told City News Service.

King, a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was among the league's founders. She will be honored at Tuesday night's match against the Philadelphia Freedoms, which she owns.

World TeamTennis matches consist of one set each of men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed doubles, with the team winning the most games winning the match.

The league began play in 1974, suspended operations following the 1978 season, then returned to action in 1981.

The biggest name on the Aviators' roster for tonight's match is Daniela Hantuchova, who has won 15 Women's Tennis Association tournaments in singles and doubles and is among 15 players to complete a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles.

Hantuchova, a 31-year-old from Slovakia, has been as high as fifth in the WTA singles rankings.

The Aviators' other female player is Kveta Peschke, a 28-time WTA tournament winner, all but one in doubles, including the 2011 title at Wimbledon.

Somdev Devvarman, the NCAA Division I men's singles champion in 2007 and 2008 while playing for the University of Virginia, and the highest player from India on the Association of Tennis Professionals singles rankings, is expected to play men's singles for the Aviators tonight.

The Aviators' other male player tonight will be Raven Klaasen, who has won four ATP World Tour tournaments in doubles and reached the final of this year's Australian Open.

Bob and Mike Bryan, the ATP's top-ranked doubles team, will play for the Aviators in their final three regular-season home matches, July 20, 22 and 23.

Tonight's opponent, the Austin Aces, are also making their debut, having moved to the Texas state capital after playing the previous 11 seasons in Orange County, where they were known as the Newport Beach Breakers and Orange County Breakers.

Austin's roster features Andy Roddick, once the world's top-ranked men's player and 2003 U.S. Open singles champion who is in his second season of playing in World TeamTennis since retiring from tournament tennis in 2012 at the age of 30.

Geyser, the founder and managing member of Geyser Holdings, an Encinitas- based early stage venture capital, deal syndication and real estate acquisition firm, purchased the New York Sportimes in January and moved them to San Diego.

Geyser said he chose the team's nickname to evoke the city's long history of military and commercial aviation.

San Diego had WTT teams from 1975-78 and 1981-83, nicknamed the Friars, and 1984-85, nicknamed the Buds. The Buds won the championship in 1984 and 1985.

The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America Greater San Diego & Desert Area Chapter is conducting a fundraiser at the match, which includes a reception. Information about the fundraiser is available at rallyforcures.org.