This past weekend, rising senior men's tennis player Martin Sayer (Hong Kong) won the Men's Open Draw at the Central.............

......Virginia Invitational in Lynchburg, Va. Below is an account of his victory in the Championship match on Sunday afternoon.

In a somewhat unsettled Men’s Open Draw of the 48th Central Virginia Invitational Tennis Tournament, Radford rising senior and CVITT sixth seed Martin Sayer was anything but unsettled in the championship match against tournament top seed Brett Ross on Sunday at Oakwood Country Club.

Sayer, who was born in Hong Kong and lived there for 18 years until Highlanders coach Mike Anderson showed up at his door, rallied from an early break of service at 1-all to take the first set.

Sayer kept rolling and won his sixth straight game by breaking Ross’ serve in the first game of the second set. He took that set to claim the 2008 CVITT Men’s Open championship 6-3, 6-2.

"It was tough match and nice to play in front of good crowd," Sayer said. "(Coming back after being broken early) was very important. I was really happy with my efforts there. He just came out of the blocks flying."

Said Anderson: "He’s a slow starter, and I have watched so many of his matches that when (Sayer) was broken in the first set, I wasn’t worried at all. I knew he was going to come on."

Sayer did two things to frustrate Ross, a touring pro and the 2006 CVITT champion and 2006 Wake Forest graduate.

First, Sayer served well. When he didn’t, he played the big points on his serve better than Ross. Ross had break points in only three games and went 1-for-5.

Sayer also displayed excellent patience. He opted not to go for the early winners, despite that being in his hard-court background. Instead, he tried to maintain pressure on Ross by getting the ball back across the net.

"Almost from second game on it was my game plan to spin the ball back and try to make life miserable for him," Sayer said.

Said Anderson: "(Sayer) played a very, very, smart match. I think it was just his fourth time on clay."

Ross, on the other hand, was visibly disturbed with inability to put away the few chances that Sayer gave up.

"At first I was able to work his backhand a little bit but then he started rolling it (with his backhand) and that threw me off," Ross said. "He hit the ball cleaner than me. I just couldn’t put away the chances I was getting. I was little too sloppy and he served well, which didn’t give much of an opportunity."

Ross will be playing in tournaments along the East Coast this summer and hopes to be able to go to South America this fall and play professionally.

"This tournament gets better every year," Ross said. "I won two years ago and it was a lot of fun and this year I lost in the finals and still had a lot of fun."