Lee, Schorr clinch singles titles

Carol Lee, seen here getting ready to serve during a Junior ITF event on Saipan, defended her girls U16 singles title in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships in Fiji yesterday. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Carol Lee and Robbie Schorr handed the CNMI two singles championships after prevailing in their respective title games in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships yesterday in Lautoka, Fiji.

Schorr took the boys U14 singles crown after surviving Tahiti’s Vaitei Molinier in an extended finale. The top-ranked CNMI bet won the opening set of the title game, 6-2, but failed to close out the championship game early when the No. 3 Molinier pulled off a 7-6 (1) triumph in the second. With the finale in a deadlock, Schorr and Molinier went through a super-tiebreaker third set with the Commonwealth player winning, 10-5.

The 14-year-old Schorr moved into the finals after eliminating fellow CNMI representative Ken Song in the semifinals last Saturday, 6-1, 6-1. Molinier also needed only two sets to advance to the title match as he dominated Fiji’s Kelese Kofe, 6-0, 6-0, in the other Final Four pairing. Kofe settled for third place following a 4-6, 7-5, 10-6 victory over Song, while the CNMI’s third entry in the division—Sean Lee—finished eighth in the field after bowing to Tahiti’s Brendon Song in the consolation match, 1-6, 4-6.

Sean’s sister, Carol, finished on top of the girls U16 singles anew after easing past Fiji’s Vienna Kumar in the finals, 6-1, 6-2.

Carol, who took last year’s U16 singles title after outlasting Palau’s Ayana Rengiil, inched closer to her second straight championship in the division after ousting fellow CNMI player Tania Tan, 6-1, 6-2 and Tahiti’s Naia Guitton, 6-0, 6-3, in the upper bracket of the draw. Carol dueled Guitton in the morning semis match and played back-to-back games yesterday as the former returned to the court in the afternoon to face Kumar. The Fiji player foiled an all-CNMI finals following a tough 6-3, 3-6, 10-6 triumph over Isabel Heras, who barged into the semis after stunning the fourth-ranked Ruby Coffin, also of Fiji, 6-1, 7-5. Heras went on to join Carol and Kumar in the Top 3 as the former defeated Guitton in the consolation match, 6-3, 6-4, while Tan finished sixth following her win over Vanuatu’s Daisy Sipiti, 6-1, 6-2.

In other results, Asia Raulerson emerged as the highest finisher among the four CNMI players entered in the girls U14 singles. Raulerson placed fourth out of the 12 participants in the division after bowing to Vanuatu’s Rosalie Molballeh in the consolation match. The Commonwealth player won the opening set, 7-6 (4), but Molballeh swept the last two, 6-3, 10-6, to make it to the Top 3 along with eventual champion Eleanor Schuster of Samoa and runner-up Lea Lamorelle of Tahiti.

Raulerson’s fellow CNMI bets—Conatsu Kaga, Malika Miyawaki, and Maria Gregoire finished fifth, sixth, and eight respectively.

Conatsu’s younger sister, Coume, had a better finish, rounding out fourth in the girls U12 singles, while Ji Min Woo and Seung Jin Paik ended up at No. 7 and 8 out of the 16 players in the boys U12 singles. In the boys U16 singles, Michel Ren placed ninth out of 16 entries, while Vincent Tudela took the No. 12 spot.