<table> </table> General manager Jeff Launius bristles when it&#8217;s mentioned that the Explorers missed the World TeamTennis playoffs last year by one match.</p><p>&#8220;One match?&#8221; Launius said the other day from his office in Municipal Auditorium. &#8220;How about two games? And Jarmila (Gajdosova of the Explorers) had (Elena) Likhovtseva on the ropes before she injured her knee.</p><p>&#8220;It was just some bad luck. That&#8217;s the way sports goes.&#8221;</p><p>True, the Explorers needed only to defeat the Sacramento Capitals in their final regular-season match last year to make the postseason for only the third time in the franchise&#8217;s 15-year history. Instead, they settled for a 9-5 record and third place in the Western Conference, while Sacramento went on to win its WTT-record sixth league championship.</p><p>The Explorers were close, and heading into year 16, which gets under way with a match against those same Capitals at 9:30 tonight in Sacramento, Launius is sure he&#8217;s upgraded his roster more than enough to take that next step.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be disappointed in anything other than the playoffs with this team,&#8221; Launius said flatly.</p><p>The Explorers will open their home season against the Springfield Lasers at 7:05 p.m. Sunday at the M&amp;I Bank Stadium Court on the Barney Allis Plaza in downtown Kansas City.</p><p>The reason for Launius&#8217; optimism is simple &#8212; the strength of his two female players.</p><p>Sure, the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, the world No. 1-ranked men&#8217;s doubles team, return for their fourth season with the team and promise to be a powerful presence. But they&#8217;ll play in only four of the 14 matches &#8212; one at home (July 19) and three on the road.</p><p>But the women, on paper at least, look to be two of the strongest the Explorers have ever had.</p><p>Kveta Peschke, a Czech who will turn 33 Wednesday, is ranked fifth in the world in women&#8217;s doubles by the Women&#8217;s Tennis Association, while partner Rennae Stubbs, an Australian veteran and Grand Slam champion, is sixth. They should form the strongest women&#8217;s doubles tandem in the league.</p><p>&#8220;On paper, it&#8217;s the strongest pair of women we&#8217;ve had,&#8221; Launius said. &#8220;Peschke and Stubbs play on tour together, so they certainly should have cohesiveness.&#8221;</p><p>Second-year coach Brent Haygarth added, &#8220;Chemistry is very important in TeamTennis, and the fact that these two have played together on tour is a huge plus. Getting an established doubles team is key.&#8221;</p><p>Peschke will play women&#8217;s singles, and though she hasn&#8217;t played a singles match this year, she did score a win last year at the French Open over Nadia Petrova, currently ranked 18th in the world.</p><p>However, because Peschke advanced far into the draw in mixed doubles at Wimbledon, she won&#8217;t be able to join the Explorers until Sunday&#8217;s home opener against Springfield. WTT veteran Angela Haynes, the league&#8217;s female MVP in 2006, will play in her place tonight in Sacramento and Saturday at Newport Beach.</p><p>Stubbs not only has an impressive veteran&#8217;s resume in doubles &#8212; four Grand Slam women&#8217;s titles, two Grand Slam championships in mixed &#8212; but she also is beginning her ninth season in WTT, so she knows the ins and outs of the unique way the league runs its matches.</p><p>Serb crowd pleaser Dusan Vemic returns on the men&#8217;s side from last season and comes into the season in fine form, having reached the semifinals in doubles at the recently completed French Open.