After winning the program’s second most matches in a season in 2005-06, the University of Nevada women’s tennis team has picked up one more accolade for last year. Now entering her senior season, Fiorella Velez (Lima, Peru) was recently honored as a Scholar-Athlete by the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
As an international business major, Velez was also named to the 2005-06 Academic All-WAC team and is the first Wolf Pack women’s player to be given this honor by the ITA. She turned a corner in her junior season winning 11 singles and 13 doubles matches, giving her career totals of 17 and 23, respectively.
In order to earn ITA Scholar-Athlete status a player must meet the following criteria: 1.) be a varsity letter winner, 2.) have a grade point average of at least 3.50 (on a 4.00 scale) for the current academic year, and 3.) have been enrolled at their present school for at least 2 semesters (including freshman thorough senior year).
The ITA is a non-profit service organization, which serves as the governing body of collegiate tennis in the United States. Comprised of nearly 1,500 men's and women's coaches representing over 1,200 institutions across the country from all three NCAA Divisions, as well as the NAIA and Junior and Community Colleges, the ITA oversees activities involving over 25,000 college student-athletes (varsity & JV). In addition to ITA collegiate coach (and team) members, the ITA also welcomes collegiate parents, junior players and parents, alumni, corporate, federation, high school coach, and associate membership.
