Sept. 27, 2009

Tennessee junior John-Patrick Smith took home his second title of the weekend, winning the A-1 singles flight at the UVa Ranked Plus One Invitational on Sunday in Charlottesville, Va.

Freshman Rhyne Williams and junior Boris Conkic also reached the championship match of their respective brackets on Sunday to cap off a successful tournament for the Vols.

"It was a great weekend for the team," associate head coach Chris Woodruff said. "We had three players make it to the finals, and two doubles teams make it to the championship match. We got exactly what we wanted out of the tournament, which was a lot of matches."

Smith defeated Virginia's Jarmere Jenkins 6-3, 6-1 in the semifinals. He won the championship match of the A-1 flight 7-5, 7-5 over Duke's Reid Carleton, who is ranked No. 29 by the ITA.

On Saturday, Smith and senior Davey Sandgren won the A-1 doubles championship.

Williams won his first match Sunday 6-4, 6-2 over No. 112 Steven Rooda of Virginia to progress to the championships. He lost in the finals 6-4, 6-4 to Virginia's Sanam Singh, the ninth-ranked player nationally.

In the first two tournaments of his career, Williams has beaten 4 of 5 ranked opponents he has faced. On Saturday, he defeated No. 16 Clay Donato of North Carolina. The UVa Invitational featured 31 of the 125 nationally ranked singles players by the ITA.

"It was particularly good for Rhyne picking up a win over the 16th-ranked player in the country," Woodruff said.

Conkic, playing in the A-4 flight, won his semifinals match 6-2, 7-5 over Jose Hernandez of North Carolina. In the championship match against Virginia's Michael Shabaz, Conkic retired in the second set because of injury.

The Vols will split up again next weekend for the Georgia Tech Fall Invitational in Atlanta and the UT-Chattanooga Steve Baras Fall Classic in Chattanooga.