Freshman Venise Chan (Washington), holding a No. 37 national ranking at present, has been named ITA Northwest Player to Watch for NCAA Division I tennis. According to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association, the ITA Player to Watch Award goes to a player who has an outstanding season and is expected to perform at a high level the rest of his or her career. In addition, this award's criteria include a player's sportsmanship and character.

In the process, Venise also broke the Stanford-Berkeley stranglehold in accounting for each and every recipient of this award dating back to 2001, when the last player who was from neither Stanford nor Berkeley to win it was Fresno State's Kim Niggemeyer (see below):

ITA Northwest Player to Watch – Women's
2008 Venise Chan (Washington)
2007 Celia Durkin (Stanford)
2006 Theresa Logar (Stanford)
2005 Suzi Babos (Berkeley)
2004 Alice Barnes (Stanford)
2003 Raquel Kops-Jones (Berkeley)
2002 Lauren Barnikow (Stanford)
2001 Kim Niggemeyer (Fresno State)

Together with other Regional Player to Watch winners, Venise's name will go towards a national ballot from which an ITA National Player to Watch will be announced on May 20.

The full list of Regional Player to Watch recipients this year are as follows:

East	Kellie Schmitt (Marshall)
Southeast	Sanaz Marand (North Carolina)
South	Fani Chifchieva (Auburn)
Midwest	Maria Mosolova (Northwestern)
Central	Mallory Voekler (Denver)
Southwest	Nina Munch-Soegaard (Texas Christian)
Northwest	Venise Chan (Washington)
West	Gabriela Niculescu (USC)

Amongst the Northwest Regional winners listed above, Celia Durkin (Stanford) and Suzi Babos (Berkeley) went on to become National Award winners.

The last player from Hong Kong to have his name enter into a national ballot was, of course, Brian Hung. As it turned out, the former Michigan captain and doubles All-American was selected from a national ballot of close to one hundred nominees amongst all sports in all three divisions as the male recipient of the 2007 NCAA Sportsmanship Award.

He remains the first student-athlete from Hong Kong, and from the University of Michigan, to win this award since its inauguration nine years ago.

Two seasons prior to that, Martin Sayer (Radford) finished second to Matt Bruch (Stanford) in the vote for ITA National Rookie of the Year Award in 2005.

At the Wilson/ITA Mideast Regional Championships that Fall, Martin announced his imminent intent to stay when he brought down no less than four nationally-ranked players to reach the final and was subsequently named Mideast Co-Champion.

He defeated NCAA No. 82 and former world junior number two, Ytai Abougzir (FSU), 6-3, 6-4, in the round of 32; No. 33 Todd Paul (Wake Forest), 7-6(2), 6-0, in the round of 16; No. 2 and top-seeded two-time defending champion, Ludovic Walter (Duke) in the quarters, 6-4, 1-6, 6-3; and No. 16 Rylan Rizza (Virginia) in the semifinals 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.

Following that barnstorming run, his ranking went from a preseason No. 113 all the way to No. 17.

Venise Chan, Brian Hung, and Martin Sayer are the only players from Hong Kong whose names have been entered into a national ballot in consideration for ITA annual honours for Division I in US Collegiate tennis thus far this decade.

Related Info:

ITA National Player to Watch – Women's
2007 Celia Durkin (Stanford)
2006 Kristi Miller (Georgia Tech)
2005 Suzi Babos (Berkeley)
2004 Alexis Gordon (Florida)
2003 Christelle Grier (Northwestern)
2002 Agata Cioroch (Georgia)

ITA West Player to Watch – Men's
2008 Robert Farah (USC)
2007 Pierre Mouillon (Berkeley)
2006 Matt Bruch (Stanford)
2005 Conor Niland (Berkeley)
2004 Sam Warburg (Stanford)
2003 Alex Vlaski (Washington)
2002 Rodrigo Drilli (UCLA)
2001 Jean-Julian Rojer (UCLA)

ITA National Player to Watch – Men's
2007 Kevin Anderson (Illinois)
2006 Arnau Brugues (Tulsa)
2005 John Isner (Georgia)
2004 Sam Warburg (Stanford)
2003 Bobby Reynolds (Vanderbilt)
2002 Romain Ambert (Mississippi State)

Source: Intercollegiate Tennis Association