At the ITA Summer Circuit '08 held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, No. 1 seed Martin Sayer (Radford) bulldozed his way through the draw without dropping a set all week, as he beat second-seeded Chris Welte (NC State), 6-4, 6-4, in the final to lift the men's singles title.

This was Martin's third title already this summer after he had won the USTA-sanctioned US$12,000 Genworth Financial CVITT Men's Open Singles title and the Roanoke Valley Invitational Mixed Doubles title last month.

"Martin started out slow in this tournament, but got his game together and was playing some excellent tennis at the end. His record for 2008 now stands at 24-1," said Radford Men's Tennis Head Coach, Mike Anderson.

"Also, Martin will be playing tournaments in Bournemouth and St. Georges Hill in the UK next week. This college summer circuit tournament served as a good warm up for the UK matches where he will see some stiffer competition."

The Radford number one's lone loss this year came at the season-ending NCAA Division I Championships in May when he lost a hard-fought three-setter to Stanford's No. 1 and the reigning Pac-10 Player of the Year, Alex Clayton.

Martin, who is the reigning three-time Big South Conference MVP, was a key contributor to Radford (15-2) finishing with a national ranking of No. 69 and receiving an automatic bid for the NCAA Championships for the second consecutive year.

Over the past three seasons, the Highlanders have amassed a 53-12 overall record, including going 18-1 in Big South Conference play, and notching undefeated regular seasons in 2006 and 2008. Radford is also riding one of the longest current NCAA Division I home winning streaks at 27 matches.

The current winning roll dates all the way back to the 2004 season.

Martin's opponent in the final, Chris Welte, who stands at 6'4" and weighs in at 200lbs, was primarily the No. 4 singles player and the No. 2 doubles lynchpin for NC State this past NCAA season during which he went 24-12 in singles overall and 18-6 in dual matches.

The sophomore also boasted wins over several tough opponents this year, most notably against George Navas (Michigan), Chris Racz (Tennessee), James Lloyd (Radford), and Sanam Singh (Virginia).

Singh, who hails from Chandigarh, India, was ranked as high as No. 4 in the ITF Junior World Rankings and the 2005 Asian Closed Junior Championship winner. With a career-best No. 97 in singles in the collegiate rankings, Singh also teamed up with Michael Shabaz to reach the doubles final of the 2007 ITA Mideast Regional Championships.

The ITA Summer Circuit is made up of seven regional circuits (East, Southeast, Midwest, Central, Mountain, Southwest and West) and six of the seven region consists of four consecutive open tournaments played during the month of July, leading up to the August 11-15 ITA National Summer Championships in Bloomington, Indiana.

The singles and doubles champions from the ITA National Summer Championships earn wild cards into the first national tournaments of the 2008-09 collegiate tennis season – the D'Novo Men's and Riviera/ITA Women's All-American Championships in October.

Results
ITA Summer Circuit '08 UNC
Chapel Hill, USA
19-22 July 2008

MEN'S SINGLES

First Round
(1)Martin Sayer (Radford) d. Preston Lemon (Virginia Tech) 6-2 6-2

Second Round
(1)Martin Sayer (Radford) d. Shaun Bussert (Ball State) 6-2 6-2

Quarterfinals
(1)Martin Sayer (Radford) d. (9)Kevin Galloway (Clemson) - walkover (ill)

Semifinals
(1)Martin Sayer (Radford) d. (5)Kevin Fleck (Clemson) 6-2 6-0

Final
(1)Martin Sayer (Radford) d. (2)Chris Welte (NC State) 6-4 6-4