Carol seizes opportunities

The CNMI’s Carol Lee is making the most out of her final year in the ITF Juniors Circuit.

After starting the season with a pair of high-ranking tournaments in Australia—the AGL Loy Yang Traralgon Junior International and the Australian Open Juniors—the 17-year-old will be heading to Morocco to train at the ITF High Performance Training Centre and compete in a series of high-level events.

“This will be my last year in the ITF Juniors, so I will take every opportunity to play in top level tournaments. After the Fed Cup, I will travel to North Africa to train at the ITF center and play several tournaments just like last season,” said Lee.

The Commonwealth player saw action in both the singles and doubles events of the Mediterranée Avenir in Casablanca and also competed in the ITF/CAT Juniors Megrine in Tunisia last year, winning her first round matches in the singles division of both tournaments.

Aside from her appearances in North African events in the ITF Juniors, Lee is hoping to gain entry to the ITF Women’s Circuit.

“While I am in North Africa, I will try to play in two or three events in the ITF Women’s Circuit,” the four-time NMSA/Tan Siu Lin Foundation Student Athlete of the Year awardee said.

Lee, after completing her games in the Australian Open, is back at the ITF Pacific Regional Training Center in Fiji to prepare for the Fed Cup. She was named to the Pacific Oceania Fed Cup Team for the third straight year and will be teaming ip with Papua New Guinea’s Violet Apisah and Abigail Tere-Apisah, Samoa’s Steffi Carruthers, and captain Gilles de Gouy of Tahiti when they play in the Group I of the 2019 Fed Cup Asia/Oceania Zone.

Lee and company will be at the indoor court of the Daulet National Tennis Centre in Astana, Kazakhstan from Feb. 6 to 9 and will be tested against the representatives of Indonesia, China, India, South Korea, Thailand, and the host country. Pacific Oceania was promoted to Group I after edging Singapore, 2-1, in the promotional playoff in Isa Town, Bahrain last year.

Five months after the Fed Cup, Lee will don the colors of the CNMI when she competes in the 2019 Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa.

“I will also be playing in some tournament in the Pacific, including this year’s Pacific Games. It’s going to be a busy season,” said Lee, who is the lone player in the region to have won three division titles (U12, U14, and U16) in the Pacific Oceania Junior Championships and the first CNMI player to play in the Australian Open Juniors.

The Saipan Community School graduate is currently ranked No. 158 in the world and is aiming to move up to the ladder, as she capitalizes on the opportunities to play more tournaments in her last season in the ITF Juniors Circuit.