The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebels To Play For NCAA Doubles Title Monday
5/25/2008 | Men's Tennis
Ole Miss was one point away from winning the national title on Sunday, as Wellermann and ten Berge led 9-8 in the third set tiebreaker against Farah and Kaes Van’t Hof. But the USC duo converted on their sixth match point to win the tiebreaker 12-10 and clinch a spot in the final. “We were very close to winning a national championship today,” head coach Billy Chadwick said. “It was a tremendous effort for Bram and Matthias to reach the NCAA semifinals. They left everything out on the court. Erling and Jonas have played absolutely great all week, and today was the best that they’ve played. They never had a break point against them. We are looking forward to tomorrow, and now we just have to win it the old fashioned way.” In their match, Tveit and Berg broke Krajicek and Pollack in the first game of the match, and that was all they needed to secure the first set. In the second set, Tveit and Berg broke in the fifth game to go up 3-2, and Berg served it out at 5-4. “It was a tough match,” Berg said. “There were only two service breaks in the whole match. We got hot and pulled it off. It was a real tight match.” "Yesterday (Saturday) and the day before we came out a little slow,” Tveit said. “We just started to prepare for the first point of this match, and we were able to break in the first game. We played really well. They were never close to breaking us. We got hot two games and broke them. We played a really solid match.” This marks the second time this year for the pair to be in the finals of a major tournament, as they finished runner-up at the ITA All-American Championships in the fall. The duo (31-9) teamed up together for the first time in the fall and has been outstanding the entire year, coming into the NCAAs ranked No. 5 in the nation. Tveit and Berg became the second Rebel team to make the NCAA Final in doubles, joining 10-time grand slam champion, Mahesh Bhupathi and former All-American Ali Hamadeh, who captured the championship in 1995. Wellermann and ten Berge were hoping to make it an all Ole Miss final, but they came up just short. USC served for the first set at 6-5, but Ole Miss broke back and won the tiebreaker 7-6(5). The second set went back and forth to another tiebreaker. Farah and Van’t Hof got out to a 4-1 lead before Ole Miss got to within one. The Trojan pair held on to win 7-6(5) forcing a decisive frame. Wellermann and ten Berge broke to go up 3-1 in the third set. Wellermann served for the match at 5-3 30-0, but USC tied the game and eventually broke back. The third set would eventually go to a tiebreaker. The breaker featured the one match point for Ole Miss, and five for USC, before they eventually closed it out. Live video and scoring of the final can be seen by going to www.OleMissSports.com and clicking on the link in the upcoming events box. NCAA INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIPS Doubles Semifinals -- Erling Tveit/Jonas Berg (OM) def. Austin Krajicek/Conor Pollack (TAMU) 6-4, 6-4; Robert Farah and Kaes Van’t Hof (USC) def. Matthias Wellermann/Bram ten Berge (OM) 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-6(10)
