Students host tennis tourney for charity
VSA at DU's tournament raises funds for Catalyst Foundation
Ashton Do, staff writer
June 3, 2007

Photo by Ashton Do VanPein Mouanoutoua concentrates on his opponent during his intermediate singles match at VSA-DU's tennis tournament May 21. There were more than 21 participants in the men's intermediate bracket.

DENVER – Neon-green balls flew back and forth for charity May 20 through 21 at Denver Berkeley Park.

Students from the Vietnamese Student Alliance (VSA) at the University of Denver hosted their first annual tennis tournament to raise donations for the Catalyst Foundation, a Minnesota-based financier of philanthropic projects and scholarships for children in Vietnam.

Sixty people played in the tournament in total, filling more than 90 spots.

“I’m really happy with the turnout for the first tournament” said Hong Vo, president of VSA at DU. “We started marketing this tournament really late – probably two weeks before the event.”

Planning for the tournament began six weeks before, but it wasn’t until the last week that it all came together, according to Cuong Huynh, a University of Colorado at Boulder student and external treasurer for VSA at DU.

“It was our first year,” he said. “We didn’t really know what to do.”

For Huynh, the main challenge was putting tournament brackets together. Many players signed up for multiple events and others registered late. It was hard to avoid time conflicts, he said.

“I was mainly nervous about the brackets,” Huynh said. “I knew it would be difficult to put together.”

With 21 participants, the men’s intermediate event was the most competitive at the tournament. There were smaller men’s beginner, advanced and doubles brackets as well.

The few women who participated played in the singles and doubles brackets. They also played in a mixed-doubles event.

“We’re hoping to get a lot more women to join next year because there weren’t that many women this year,” Huynh said. “So we had to combine brackets for them.”

VSAs at universities nationwide hope to raise a collective $35,000 in fundraising money for the Catalyst Foundation. So far, VSA at DU raised $2,000 from past fundraisers. They project another $1,500 in the coming months.

“Hopefully, (for) every tournament we have from now on, all of the proceeds will just go to charity,” Vo said.

For more information about the Catalyst Foundation, visit http://www.catalystfoundation.org.

Ashton Do is a staff writer for AsiaXpress.com. Ashton can be contacted via e-mail at Ashton.Do@asiaxpress.com.