Boyer hands men’s 4.0 title to Camacho

The 27th DFS Micronesian Tennis Championships officially concluded Thursday night when the finals of the men’s 4.5 singles was finally decided between up-and-coming netter James Camacho and veteran tennis player Gabriel Boyer.

The championship, however, was not settled on the tennis court nor was it decided by a coin toss.

Boyer, citing his busy schedule as the businessman owns and operates Café at the Park, gladly gave the men’s 4.0 singles championship on a silver platter to his nephew Camacho.

While he and Camacho were initially scheduled to play last Monday at the Pacific Islands Club tennis courts, Mother Nature intervened and pushed it to Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency Saipan. Rain again interrupted the continuation of the game and the finals only finally got underway on Wednesday night.

The two-hour reservation at the Garapan landmark, however, only allowed Boyer and Camacho to finish one and a quarter set and the two agreed to continue the game the next day, Thursday, with Boyer in firm control of the match, leading 6-4, 2-1.

But it turned out that Boyer was too bogged down with work on the assigned day and time that he himself reached out to Camacho to inform him that he was forfeiting the rest of the match to the youngster.

In other championship matches of the 2008 edition of the DFS Micronesian Tennis Championships, Ji Hoon Heo won the men’s open title without even lifting his racquet as his finals opponent, Jeff Race, was too sick to play last Monday.

Mayuko Arriola, meanwhile, hoisted the women’s open tiara after beating fellow teenage tennis sensation, Vivien Lee, in another finals match that needed more than one day to complete.

Arriola and Lee started their finals match last Monday at the PIC tennis court but rain showers postponed it to the next day, Tuesday, and Arriola finally prevailed following a tough three-set contest, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, at the Hyatt Regency Saipan tennis courts.

Lope Padilla (men’s 4.5), Dodong Salinas (men’s 3.0), J.W. Jang (men’s 40-and-over), Dinalet Jones (women’s 3.0/2.0), Heo and Cody Race (boys’ 16-and-under), Clay McCullough-Stearns (boys’ 12-and-under), and Mikayla Lopez and Kris Obaldo (girls’ 12-and-under) also won their respective divisions last Sunday.