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70 netters qualify for POJC
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Posted on Jul 22 2011
The list of players competing in the 2011 ITF Pacific Oceania Junior Championships is now complete with 70 making the cast for next month’s tournament in Lautoka, Fiji.
Of the 70 players, the CNMI had the second most entries with 11, behind the host’s 13. Earning slots for the CNMI for the Aug. 8 to 12 regional tournament are U12’s Carl Dela Cruz, Moris Villanueva, Negahr Rastguiy, and Tammy Ackerman, U15’s Christian Miller, Jake Lee, Melody Johnson, and Mikayla Lopez, and U18’s Rafael Jones and Thea Minor. The 10 Commonwealth junior netters clinched tickets to the Fiji trip after placing in the Top 4 in the North Pacific Qualifying Tournament in Guam last month. Joining them is Theecel Minor, who was given a wild card berth in the girls U18 competition.
The CNMI netters will lead the North Pacific Team, which will be gunning for back-to-back championships against the West and East squads. Also on the North squad are Guam’s Edward Chung, Camdyn Nadler Emil Penafiel, and Gabrielle Tan, Palau’s Ayana Rengiil and Abigail Gbwenyo, and the Federated States of Micronesia’s Jenna Panuelo and T.J. Rush.
The West Pacific Team was the first one to hold the POJC qualifying tournament with Fiji getting 11 regular slots and notching two wild card berths. The Solomon Islands had the second most qualifiers on the West team with seven. Papua New Guinea has six players on the squad and Vanuatu has two.
The East completed its own qualifier last week with the Cook Islands having the most player on the squad with seven and Tahiti, American Samoa, and Samoa listing four each. Tonga has two players on the East squad.
Players in the East, West, and North squads will earn points based on how they will finish in the singles competition and these will be added to determine the winning squad. Last year, the North earned 131 points against the West’s 128 to end the latter’s nine-year reign in the POJC. The East squad collected 77 markers to drop from second to third.
