1978 World Team Tennis Standings

By Patrick Mondout

Changes for the 1978 WTT season included the Cleveland franchise moving to to New Orleans, the Sea-Port (Seattle Portland) franchise becoming the Seattle Cascades, and the addition of the Anaheim Oranges as an expansion franchise.

The mounting losses became too much for the new league and Indiana folded just after the regular season ended. The following teams followed shortly after the playoffs:

• October 27, 1978: New York and runner-up Boston
• November 7, 1978: League champion Los Angeles
• November 8, 1978: San Diego

Then on November 10th, Seattle, New Orleans, and Anaheim joined them leaving only Phoenix and San Francisco in the league! Nevertheless, the WTT carried on and even awarded new franchises to Dallas, Los Angeles and San Diego. A sagging economy and a lack of new investors forced the World Team Tennis league to cease operations on March 8, 1979.

WTT Quarterfinals

Boston defeated New Orleans, New York defeated Anaheim, Seattle defeated San Diego and Los Angeles beat the Golden Gators.

WTT Semifinals

Boston defeated Seattle and New York was defeated by Los Angeles.

WTT Championship

The Los Angeles Strings claimed the last WTT Championship by defeating the Boston Lobsters 108-93 (24-21, 30-20, 26-27, 28-25). The Stings were led by victories in women's singles by Chris Evert over Martina Navratilova (7-6) and by Ilie Nastase over Tony Roche in men's singles. Evert won the playoff MVP award.

In addition to Evert and player/coach Nastase, the Stings featured Vijay Amritraj, Ashok Amritraj, Ann Kiyomura, and Stephanie Tolleson

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