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6 junior tennis players competing in Aussie tourneys
Ji Min Woo goes for a backhand slice during a local tournament last year at the Pacific Islands Club. Woo and six other CNMI junior players are in Australia to compete in two tournaments. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)
Six CNMI junior tennis players left Saipan last Monday to join two tournaments in Australia.
Ken Song, Malika Miyawaki, Jimin Woo, Seung Kin Paik, and siblings Conatsu and Coume Kaga are now in the Land Down Under, getting ready for the 2017 Margaret Court Cup and the 2017 Victorian Junior Grasscourt Championship. The Margaret Court Cup will take place first as it will run from Jan. 6 to 10 at the Albury Grasscourts in Albury, New South Wales, while the Victorian Junior will be held from Jan. 11 to 14 at the Wodonga Tennis Center in Wodonga, Victoria.
In Albury, Song is entered in boys U16 singles main draw, which has a 70-player field. He is at the top half of the draw and will play his first game this Friday against Australia’s Lukas Evans at 3:30pm (2:30pm Saipan time).
In the girls U14 singles main draw, Miyawaki is among the seeded players at No. 15 and she is also at the upper half of the field. The Saipan International School student drew a bye in the first round and will have her opener versus the unranked Chelsea Mcgrath on Saturday. Joining Miyawaki at the top half of the draw is Coume, who is paired against the host’s Callison Row in her opening match this Friday at 12pm. At the bottom half, Coume’s older sister Conatsu will go up against Vanuatu’s Rosalie Molbaleh.
In the boys U12 singles, Paik and Woo are in the 58-player main draw. Paik is at the upper half of the draw and will face the No. 12 seed Maxwell Prest of Australia in the first round this Friday, while Woo will challenge another Land Down Under bet in Zachary David Reid at the bottom half of the field.
Woo and company will also play in the doubles event in Albury and in the same age group competitions in Wodonga (draws are unavailable at press time).
The six CNMI players are in Australia as members of the Pacific Oceania Touring Team. They earned spots on the elite squad after their notable games in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships in Fiji.
After the two competitions in Australia, only Song and Miyawaki will return to Saipan (Jan. 19), as Woo, Paik, and the Kaga sisters will head to Fiji to train at the ITF/OTF regional facility for 10 months and attend an online school.
“Staying in Fiji is a great opportunity to learn and improve my skills. My goals are to train harder and win an ITF main draw match this year,” Woo said in a message sent to Saipan Tribune yesterday.
