CNMI bags three doubles titles

Ken Song, seen here serving to Robbie Schorr during the 2014 CNMI Junior Tennis Championships at the PIC hard courts, teamed up with the latter in winning the boys U12 doubles crown in the 2014 North Pacific Regional Championships in Guam last week.(Roselyn B. Monroyo)

The teams of Robbie Schorr and Ken Song and Conatsu Kaga and Malika Miyawaki triumphed in the U12 age group, while Tania Tan and Julia Ishikawa topped the U14 to bring the CNMI’s gold medal haul in the tournament held in Guam last week to six. The Commonwealth bets earlier nailed title wins in the boys and girls U12 singles and girls U14 singles, making coach Jeff Race’s team the most successful one in the six-day competition, dominating Guam, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Schorr and Song swept their way to the title victory in the boys U12 doubles, finishing the event with a 4-0 record and posting an unbeaten mark in eight sets. The duo had similar 6-0, 6-1 wins over Palau’s Deavyn Etscheit and Moses Segal and Guam’s Dakota Gibson and Justin Kim and labored a 6-2, 7-5 victory against Guam’s Aaron Abrams and Andrew Leng before cruising past FSM’s Freddy Jerson and Elijah Ziegler, 6-0, 6-2.

Kaga and Miyawaki were also flawless in the girls U12 doubles, starting their string of wins with a 7-5, 6-4 victory over fellow CNMI players Jireh Warren and Asia Raulerson last Thursday morning. Then in the afternoon, Kaga and Miyawaki crushed FSM’s Isabel Garcia and Anne Skilling, 6-0, 6-0, before blanking another FSM pair in Chelsea Panuelo and Ridianne Wolphagen last Friday to complete the sweep.

In the girls U14, Tan and Ishikawa also earned shutout wins, demolishing CNMI teammates Mimi Sakano and Ami Tsukagoshi in the first game. Ishikawa and Tan’s two other wins came easy, too, as they pounded Guam’s Anika Sachdev and Jocelyn Tenai, 6-1, 6-0, and Kanasta Abrams and Victoria Smith, 6-0, 6-2.

In the boys U14, the CNMI’s Aditya Rai and Haruya Eda survived a three-set quarterfinal match versus Guam’s Arya Rhamani and Marcus Schrader, 3-6, 6-2, 13-11, before bowing to the second-ranked Abraham Sterkis and Joab William in the semifinals, 0-6, 1-6.

In the boys U16 doubles, Ramsey and Lizama made it to the finals against top-ranked Chris Cajigan and Brian Tuncap Jr. and settled for runner-up honors after absorbing a 4-6, 3-6 defeat. Before their loss in the finals, Ramsey and Lizama eliminated two teams, downing FSM’s Geryld Etscheit and Jake Panuelo first, 6-2, 6-0, before stunning the second-ranked Guam duo of Sydney Gadsden and Shane Schnabel, 6-1, 6-4.