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PALO ALTO, Calif. - The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) announced the national award winners for NCAA Division I tennis today during a ceremony on the campus of Stanford University, in conjunction with the NCAA Division I Team Championships.
The winners of the 3rd Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) and United States Tennis Writers Association (USTWA) Writing Competition were also announced at Tuesday's award ceremony as well.
This year's ITA national award winners are:
2011 Men's Award Winners:
*Wilson/ITA National Coach of the Year - TBD
ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year - Bob McKinley, Texas A&M University (College Station, TX)
ITA/Farnsworth National Senior Player of the Year - Michael Shabaz, University of Virginia (Fairfax, VA)
ITA National Rookie of the Year - Alex Domijan, University of Virginia (Wesley Chapel, FL)
ITA National Player to Watch - Blaz Rola, Ohio State University (Ptuj, Slovenia)
ITA/Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship - Vahid Mirzadeh, Florida State University (Wellington, FL)
ITA/Rafael Osuna Sportsmanship Award - Sanam Singh, University of Virginia (Chandigarh, India)
2011 Women's Award Winners:
*Wilson/ITA National Coach of the Year - TBD
ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year - Sara Anundsen, University of North Carolina (Littleton, CO)
ITA National Senior Player of the Year - Maria Sanchez, University of Southern California (Modesto, CA)
ITA National Rookie of the Year - Kristie Ahn, Stanford University (Upper Saddle River, NJ)
ITA National Player to Watch - Marta Lesniak, Southern Methodist University (Wroclaw, Poland)
ITA/Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship - Amy Zhang, Rutgers University (Plano, TX)
ITA /Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship - Stephanie Davidson, Texas A&M University (Fair Oaks Ranch, TX)
*Please note that the Wilson/ITA National Coaches of the Year will be selected and announced after the completion of the 2011 NCAA Division I Team Championships.
Already a member of the ITA Hall of Fame, Bob McKinley, the ITA Men's Assistant Coach of the Year, is in his fifth year at Texas A&M, serving as an assistant coach on Steve Denton's staff. McKinley served as the head coach at Trinity University from 1974-84, reaching the NCAA Finals in 1977 and 1979. He has coached an individual champion as well as an NCAA doubles champion tandem. McKinley had served as the Director of John Newcombe Tennis Academy in New Braunfels before joining Denton on the Aggie staff. In his playing days at Trinity, he helped lead Trinity to the 1972 NCAA Championship and he reached the Round of 16 at Wimbledon in 1973 and reached the doubles semifinals at the U.S. Open in 1972.
The Women's Assistant Coach of the Year, Sara Anundsen, claimed the regional award for the second time in as many years. Anundsen had a standout playing career at North Carolina and is quickly becoming one of the nation's top young coaches. The former NCAA doubles champion and two-time ITA All-America performer was named assistant coach for the North Carolina's women's tennis team in the summer of 2008. Anundsen, a 2007 UNC graduate, combined with Jenna Long to win the 2007 NCAA doubles title - the first national championship in program history. Anundsen, who spent the 2007-08 season as an assistant at Princeton, has assisted 2010 Wilson/ITA Division I Women's Coach of the Year, Brian Kalbas, to the two best seasons in school history during the past two seasons.
Michael Shabaz was named ITA Men's Senior Player of the Year after posting a 27-4 overall singles record, including a 21-3 dual match record. He is currently ranked No. 4 nationally in singles and No. 2 in doubles with Drew Courtney, who won the ITA All-American doubles title. Michael Shabaz is looking to become the first player to win three consecutive doubles titles since Rafael Osuna of USC in 1961-63. Shabaz set a UVA single-season record with five Player of the Week awards, finished his career with seven career conference POW awards, two shy of Somdev Devvarman's ACC record of nine career awards.
ITA Women's Senior Player of the Year, Maria Sanchez was also named the 2011 Pac-10 Player of the Year, is currently ranked No. 2 in the Campbell/ITA Rankings, and held the No. 1 spot for several weeks throughout the season. Sanchez established herself as the best in the nation when she became the first Trojan to win the USTA/ITA National Indoor Singles Championship since 1986 in capturing the 2010 title this fall. She went on to remain a force in the conference and the nation, reaching the Pac-10 singles and doubles title matches in the 2011 tournaments in Ojai. She claimed the USTA/ITA Regional Singles championships in 2009 and 2010, and the USTA/ITA Regional Doubles crown in 2009. Sanchez has also garnered international experience as a member of the 2009 and 2010 USTA Summer Collegiate Teams and USA's 2010 Master'U BNP Paribas Team. She carried her 35-4 overall singles record into the NCAA Singles action, and a 27-4 overall doubles mark into the doubles field.
ITA Men's Rookie of the Year, Alex Domijan was unanimously selected as ACC Freshman of the Year, becoming the fourth Cavalier to win the award and first since Somdev Devvarman (2005). Currently ranked No. 2 nationally in singles, Domijan entered the NCAA Championships with a 34-2 singles record this season, including a 24-0 dual match record. In October he became just the third freshman to win the ITA All-American singles title in the 32-year history of the event. The 2011 ITA National Team Indoors MVP was one of just three players (USC's Steve Johnson, Campbell's Davy Sum) to go undefeated in dual match play this season.
Kristie Ahn was named ITA Women's Rookie of the Year after entering the NCAA Championship riding a 24-match winning streak that included an upset over second-ranked Maria Sanchez of USC to capture the Pac-10 Championships singles title. Ranked 15th nationally, Ahn is also 18-3 in tournament play and 16-0 in duals (9-0 at the No. 3 spot, 7-0 at the No. 4 spot).
Blaz Rola, the ITA Men's Player to Watch, also was named the 2011 Big Ten Freshman of the Year, after boasting a team-high 36 victories. Posting a 23-3 ledger during the spring, Rola accumulated an 8-2 mark at No. 1 position and a 15-1 record at No. 2. The ITA's fourth-ranked player in the country currently has a 12-5 record vs. ranked opponents and carried an eight-match win streak into the NCAA team championships. Additionally, Rola received the Big Ten Conference's automatic bid (No. 5 seed) into the NCAA singles championship, as well as the league's automatic NCAA doubles berth with Chase Buchanan.
ITA Women's Player to Watch, Marta Lesniak, earned her second straight Conference-USA Player of the Year honor in 2011 and her third straight selection to the All-Conference USA First Team. Lesniak is 41-5 on the season, including a 23-2 mark in dual matches at No. 1 singles. Her 41 wins this season rank second at SMU while her 52 career doubles victories are tops in school history. In the fall, the native of Poland won the consolation singles bracket of the 2010 USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships. Lesniak was also named the ITA Southwest Rookie of the Year in 2009.
Vahid Mirzadeh, winner of the 2011 Men's ITA/Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship Award, has been captain of the Florida State men's team the past two seasons. He was named to the All-ACC team in 2010 and 2011, the All-ACC Academic Team in 2009 and 2010. Mirzadeh has volunteered at Tennis Community Days teaching kids how to play tennis, mentoring the junior tennis team, as well as reading to elementary school kids and partaking in FSU Day at the Capital. Mirzadeh's academics have been top-notch since he arrived on campus. This semester, not only was he playing amazing tennis, he was also working hard in the classroom and posted a 3.93 GPA for the spring. Overall he has a 3.5 GPA while working on his degree in Hospitality Management. It should also be noted that in 2005, Vahid's brother Hamid won the regional ITA/Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship award while playing at Florida.
With a 16-6 singles record, the 2011 Women's ITA/Arthur Ashe Jr. Award for Leadership and Sportsmanship winner, Amy Zhang, was named to the All-Big East First Team for the third consecutive year. However, Zhang has also excelled in the classroom, as she was chosen as one of 90 people worldwide to be named a Gates Cambridge Scholar last month, for which she will receive a full-cost award for full-time graduate study abroad trip to study at Cambridge University. The 2010 Big East Scholar Athlete of the Year was also the first female winner of the American Eagle Outfitters Michael Tranghese Postgraduate Leadership Award, boasting a 3.96 GPA in Rutgers' computer science honors program. She is involved in numerous community service projects, including the Challah Foundation, which consists of working with cancer patients as well as tutoring local public schools. As President of the university's Women in Computer Science group, she and fellow students organized a fundraising campaign to aid Nigerian students with computing.
The ITA/Cissy Leary Award is one of several honors that Stephanie Davidson has received this year. The sports management major was one of four Texas A&M students to receive the prestigious Margaret Rudder Service Award, announced at the Parents' Weekend All-University Awards Ceremony last month. The Margaret Rudder Community Service Award recognizes and awards those who significantly impact their community and, as a result, are themselves impacted by their contribution. Earlier this year, Davidson was selected to the Big 12/Chick-fil-A Winter Community of Champions. During the fall, winter and spring terms, the Big 12 Conference, in conjunction with Chick-fil-A, honors one student-athlete from each institution. Davidson, a member of the Academic All-Big 12 second team, is active in Aggie Athletes Involved (AAI) and served as vice president of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). This past fall, she gave more than 100 hours serving as co-chair of 2010 AAI Aggies CAN, the largest student-athlete run food drive in the nation which resulted in the collection of a record $15,160 in addition to 3,485 pounds of canned food to benefit the Brazos Valley Food Bank. Davidson recently completed her four-year tennis career with the fourth most doubles victories in A&M history.
In addition to being named the 2011 ITA/Rafael Osuna Sportsmanship Award winner, Sanam Singh was named the Atlantic Region nominee for the Arthur Ashe Leadership and Sportsmanship Award. He volunteers annually as a tennis instructor for the Charlottesville Special Olympics Tennis Clinic and Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association (CLTA), which strives to give back to underprivileged children. Sanam has also served as a four-year member of UVA's Student-Athlete Mentoring (SAM) program. On the court, Singh has earned the reputation as one of college tennis' true sportsmen, giving the utmost respect to each opponent and match he participates in. He has been extremely successful on the court, earning All-ACC honors for the fourth consecutive season, becoming the fifth Cavalier to be a four-time All-ACC selection. This year he is 30-6 in singles, earning him a current ranking of No. 35 in singles.
ITA/USTWA Writing Competition
The winners of the 3rd Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) and United States Tennis Writers Association (USTWA) Writing Competition were also announced today. The competition consisted of two separate contests, one eligible for Sports Information Directors and one available for students currently enrolled in a college or university. The top three articles chosen in each contest will receive cash prizes, an awards certificate and the opportunity to be featured on www.itatennis.com andwww.USTWA.org. In addition, the first place winner of the student writing contest will receive a 2-month unpaid internship with the ITA. Think you can write? Start preparing for next year's chance to serve us your college tennis articles for an opportunity to win cash and prizes.
SIDs:
1. Kate Burkholder - Tennis Legends Reunite In Athens
2. Amanda Pruitt - Summing Up The Senior Class
3. Sarah Van Metre - Advantage Seniors
Students:
1. Joey Francis - How You Play The Game
2. Julie Flanzer - Junior Tennis
3. Warren Race - Facing Adversity
For the complete list of finalists, please visit www.itatennis.com. |
