Thompson claims singles championship in CVITT

Despite struggling with his serve, Nathan Thompson was on top of all other aspects of his game in Sunday’s Central Vir-ginia Invitational Tennis Tournament men’s open singles final at Oakwood Country Club.

The No. 3 seed from Maryland moved second-seeded Virginia graduate Treat Huey from side to side and kept him deep with his ground strokes before finishing him off with a volley winner on match point in a 6-4, 6-3 victory.

“I was just trying to keep him back, trying to attack, hitting high balls to his backhand and looking for my forehand,” Thompson said. “That was pretty much my gameplan. I felt like he couldn’t hurt me if I was back and I was playing defense pretty well.”

After blowing out his ankle playing basketball in high school in Baltimore, Thompson shifted his career focus to tennis, earning ACC player of the year as a senior at Clemson in 2005.

He still wears a brace on his ankle, but it doesn’t noticeably affect his mobility. He also has the endurance to battle through long rallies, and multiple sets.

“It’s like being Secretariat’s trainer,” said David Fracassi, Thompson’s personal trainer. “He’s in the best shape and you just have to keep him there.”

Thompson broke Huey’s serve three times in the first set, but had his serve broken twice.

“It was tough to get into a rhythm out there,” Thompson said of his serving. “The sun was in my eyes, I’m sure it was in his, too.”

It was Thompson’s third triumph over Huey in as many tries.

“Something about our game styles matches up (in Thompson’s favor),” Huey said. “He really pushed me around. He really took it to me. Hopefully, we’ll play again, I’d love to have another chance.”

Huey then joined fellow UVa graduate Dom Inglot, the NCAA Division I doubles champion playing with Michael Shabez this spring, to capture the men’s open doubles title in dominating fashion over Virginia Tech’s No. 1 duo of Patrick Daciek and Nicolas Delgado, 6-1, 6-2.

Huey survived a couple break points on his serve in the second set before Inglot served out the match with a love game, capped with an overpowering ace.

“I served well and having Dom as a partner helps out a lot,” Huey said. “He’s so big at the net and he’s serving 160 (mph) out there, blowing people off the court. He’s pretty intimidating obviously for people we play.”

“Treat really returned well as well and served really well,” added Inglot, from England. “So we held serve pretty com-fortably and I think that put pressure on our opponent.”

Inglot hasn’t played much on clay, but he adjusted to it, showing some stealthy quickness on his returns.

“Treat’s a little bit more agile than I am, but after a few days playing on clay, I started getting used to it and we definitely got to some balls that they probably didn’t expect,” he said.

This was the first tournament the tandem had played together. Huey graduated in 2007 as UVa’s all-time winningest dou-bles player.

“I’m happy we won the title,” said Huey, who wasn’t affected by playing in back-to-back finals in the heat of the day. “It was fun. We played real well and hopefully we can play some tournaments in the future, maybe ATP tournaments.”

Delgado probably won’t make it back to Lynchburg for next year’s 50th anniversary of the CVITT as he’ll return to his homeland of Spain in a couple of weeks. He plans to play in some tournaments and hang out with his good friend Rafael Nadal, the four-time French Open champion.

“I used to play with him a lot when I was in juniors,” said Delgado, who plans to watch Nadal play with Spain’s Davis Cup team on July 10 and then travel to New York in September, during his final semester at Virginia Tech, to see him try to complete a career Grand Slam. “He’s my age, 23, so he’s got a lot of tournaments ahead. He might try to get Roger Federer’s record of Grand Slam titles.”

Though he doesn’t hold the record yet, 1989 Virginia graduate Carl Clark swept past second-seeded Tommy McDonald, 6-2, 6-0, to claim his fifth CVITT men’s 35 singles title. The 42-year-old head tennis professional at Country Club of Virginia in Richmond also has won eight men’s open doubles championships and one men’s open singles title, in 1997.

The men’s 45 singles final pitted Oakwood Country Club pro Mark Vines against Boonsboro Country Club pro Drew Rob-inson in the latest of a long series of rivalries between the two professionals. After winning the second set 6-2 to draw even with Vines, Robinson had to retire in the third set, nursing a pulled muscle in his right leg. Vines won a first-set tie-breaker 7-6 (8-6) and led the third set 2-1.

Other than that, the most competitive match of the day may have been the mixed doubles final between Brad Pomeroy and Douglas Wink of North Carolina and defending champions Martin Sayer and Cassaundra Price of Radford.

Playing in their first tournament together, Pomeroy and Wink rallied for a 3-6, 6-4, (10-7) triumph, with Wink finishing it off with a volley winner on Sayer’s serve in the super tie-breaker.

“The boys were much better than we were,” said Wink, who played for Virginia’s women’s tennis team before graduating in 2006 and hasn’t played competitively since. “I played here when they had women’s singles six years ago (as a freshman at UVa) but I haven’t played since.”

She held her own, slugging it out from the baseline with Sayer, last year’s men’s open champion, and finishing sharp, an-gled volleys at the net.

“She can handle just about anything a guy can throw at her,” Pomeroy said, who won the men’s open singles and doubles titles in 2007.

Though the pressure wasn’t as high, with only a few fans remaining for the tournament’s final match, it did feature some drama and plenty of competitive rallies.

“It was fun,” Pomeroy said. “It was a little intense. You don’t want to let your partner down.”