The University of Mississippi Athletics
Devin Britton To Play For National Championship In Singles
5/24/2009 | Men's Tennis
COLLEGE STATION,
Britton (28-9) will face
For the second straight day, Britton’s opponent had several chances to take the early advantage, but the
“I played sloppy at the beginning of the game,” he said. “I didn’t make a first serve. Then on love-40, I hit three first serves. If you don’t make a first serve there, you’re in trouble. Luckily, I had a couple of big first serves and didn’t have to play the point out too much.”
Britton held three sets points in the tiebreaker, but Strode erased them all. At 10-9, Britton finally converted to win it and seize the momentum.
“It was a very tight tiebreaker,” Britton noted. “It definitely could have gone either way. It came down to probably one hit of the ball.”
In the second set, Britton broke Strode to take a 5-3 lead, but Strode answered with a break of his own. Britton promptly returned the favor in the next game to close out the set and the match 7-6(9), 6-4 for his 13th consecutive victory.
“I definitely served very well today,” Britton said. “He (Strode) was actually serving pretty well also. He played a bunch of good games, but he missed a couple of serves. I was lucky to get out of the first set. He was serving 5-3 and I cracked a couple of second serves. He wanted to kind of work the point and work the forehand, and I tried to take that away from him as much as possible. I was pretty successful. I was pretty happy about the tiebreaker and the big points as well.”
His head coach, Billy Chadwick, was obviously happy about the outcome as well, saying that Britton executed the game plan perfectly.
“Today was a great matchup,” Chadwick said. “Devin wanted to set the tone of the match by letting (Strode) know he was going after his backhand. He went to the forehand and kept him off-balance. He was in trouble in the first set, but hit five first serves to close it out. That, to me, was the point he won the match.
“He did a great job of competing on every point and using his guns. Devin was able to use his great serve to his advantage. That was the difference. Now he’s going into the finals with the attitude to win it. He played an excellent match today.”
Britton defeated Moritz Baumann of
NCAA SINGLES CHAMPIONSHIP COLLEGE STATION,
