MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — GPS’s Claire Bartlett and McCallie’s David Henry will play for TSSAA Division II-AA state tennis titles today, but getting there was a little awkward. Both seniors had to play their own teammates in the semifinals.

Bartlett will play for her third state singles championship and Henry will play for his first today at Middle Tennessee State University.

St. Andrew’s-Sewanee’s Sadie Shackelford will play for the first Division II-A classification title and could be the first eighth-grader to win a Spring Fling singles championship. She faces Kendall Ganus of Davidson Academy.

Baylor’s Currant Scruggs and Katie Thornton will play Knoxville Webb’s Guinn and Vicki Garcia for the AA doubles championship. Finals begin at 10 a.m. EDT at MTSU.

Bartlett, who will play for the University of Virginia, faces Pope John Paul II’s Gabriela Rangel, a Mississippi signee who handed Bartlett her only loss in a dual team match earlier in the season. Since then, Bartlett defeated Rangel in a USTA designated tournament in Memphis and in the East/Middle region final.

Bartlett beat teammate and hotel roommate Sarah Evans in a 6-0, 6-2 semifinal.

“It was so weird because we slept in the same room, we had breakfast together, lunch and rode in the same bus,” Bartlett said. “We tried to put it out of our minds. We’d hate for one to lose, because you want your teammates to have an equal chance.”

Henry, a Memphis signee, beat teammate J.P. McLemore in a semifinal, 6-3, 6-2. Henry faces Knoxville Webb freshman Brandon Hickey in the final.

“It was tough playing a teammate and there were some awkward moments,” Henry said. “When you’re playing a friend, I feel like one plays better than the other, and today I just got lucky. And it’s weird because you want to play well and show them what you’ve got, but they already know it because you’re friends.”

Scruggs and Thornton defeated Caroline Orr and Lee Leavell of Hutchison, 7-6(5), 6-3, to advance to the final. Thornton won last year with Brandi Cordell.

Comments