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Carol back in Fiji, preps up for Junior ITF tourney
The CNMI’s Carol Lee resumes her training at the ITF/OTF regional facility in Fiji to prepare for another world-ranking tournament.
Lee, who completed her stint in the 2017 Fed Cup Asia/Oceania Zone Group II in Tajikistan last week and helped Pacific Oceania finish fifth in the pool, returned to Fiji last Tuesday and will be playing in the Oceania Closed Junior Championships 2017. The tournament will run from Aug. 7 to 11 in Lautoka and is a Grade B2 event under the Juniors ITF Circuit. The singles champion in the Oceania Closed will be awarded 120 ranking points, while 80, 60, 40, 25, and 10 will go to the runner-up, semifinalists, quarterfinalists, losers in Last 16, and losers in Last 32. Eighty and 60 points will be given to the doubles champions and runners-up, and 40, 25, and 10 to the semifinalists, quarterfinalists, and losers in Last 16.
“It’s a big tournament and I will be training in Fiji for two weeks to prepare for the competition,” said Lee, who joined the same event last year and got only one win.
She defeated Kaitlyn Portela of Australia in the Round of 32, 4-0, 4-1, but lost to Daniela Kovacevic, also from the Land Down Under, in the Round of 16, 3-5, 3-5. In the doubles, Lee and Palau’s Ayana Rengiil bowed to Australia’s Kaitlin Staines and Jessica Zaviacic in the opening round, 3-5, 3-5.
The CNMI player is hoping that the matches she played in the Fed Cup in Tajikistan would help her prepare for tough games in this year’s Oceania Closed and allow her to get better results.
“Playing one single and three doubles games gave me more confidence as I challenged women players in the Top 900 and below in the world during the Fed Cup,” the 15-year-old Lee said.
