Carol settles for runner-up honors in Malaysia

Carol Lee, seen here returning a shot in a tournament last year, finished runner-up in the doubles event of the 1st ITF Perlis Junior Championship 2017 in Malaysia last Saturday. (Contributed Photo)

The CNMI’s Carol Lee fell short in her bid for a third doubles title in the Juniors ITF Circuit after losing to the No. 1 seed team in the 1st ITF Perlis Junior Championship 2017.

Lee and her Australian partner Chiara Di Tommaso bowed to the top-ranked duo of Jiaqi Wang of China and Anastassiya Astakhova of Kazakhstan in an extended finale last Saturday at the Tuanku Syed Putra Tennis Complex in Kangar, Perlis to settle for the runner-up honors in the Grade 4 tournament. It was a tough loss for the No. 2 seed Lee and Tommaso as they even drew first blood in the title match, escaping with a 7-6 (5) victory in the opening set.

In the second set, Lee and Tommaso also engaged their opponents in a close match before Wang and Astakhova pulled off a 6-4 victory to send the championship game to a super-tiebreaker third set. The decider turned out to be another back-and-forth duel with the Chinese-Kazakhs pair completing the come-from-behind win and avoiding the upset axe of Lee and Tommaso after posting a 10-7 triumph.

With their second place finish, Lee and Tommaso each received 20 Juniors ITF ranking points, while the champions got 30 apiece. The Commonwealth player earned additional 20 ranking points for making it to the semifinals of the singles event.

Lee missed a finals stint in the singles play after losing to China and No. 3 seed Zheng Hua Xiao in their semis showdown last Friday, 4-6, 1-6. Xiao was scheduled to face Wang in the all-Chinese title game yesterday and results of the finale were unavailable at press time.

Meanwhile, Lee left Perlis for Sarawak last weekend to compete in the 30th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup, which will run from Oct. 10 to 15 at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association Centre in Kuching. The CNMI bet is the sixth highest (No. 220) ranked player in the girls division and is likely to get seeding in the main draw, which will not be out until later this afternoon. The tournament in Sarawak is a Grade 3 event, which offers more ranking points, and will feature majority of the players that joined the tournament in Perlis, including Lee’s Chinese tormentors and Astakhova. No. 83 Sohyun Park and No. 120 Sakura Hosogi are the two highest ranked player in the competition and are the early favorites.