Contrasting victories for Carol

The CNMI’s Carol Lee, seen here rushing to the net during training at the OTF/ITF facility in Fiji this year, is in the quarterfinals of the singles and doubles events of the ITF Waikato-Bays Under 18s Championships in New Zealand. (Contributed Photo)

CNMI junior player Carol Lee played back-to-back games on the same court in the ITF Waikato-Bays Under 18s Championships and won both of them to make it to the quarterfinals of the singles and doubles competitions.

Lee first saw action in the singles event on Court 12 at the Waikato Tennis Centre in East Hamilton, New Zealand yesterday morning and nearly shutdown Kiwi qualifier Cayla McInroy, 6-0, 6-1, in their third round match at the bottom half of the draw.

The third-seeded Lee allowed the least points among the Round of 8 qualifiers in the singles field. The top-ranked Lisa Mays of Australia also swept her foe, but gave up seven points to Japanese and No. 13 Yuna Ohashi, 6-3, 6-4. No. 2 Ashleigh Harvey of New Zealand blanked Australia’s Georgia Townsend in the first set, 6-0, but labored in the second before winning, 6-3.

The other quarterfinalists in the singles event were New Zealand’s Oleksandra Kalachova, Janvhi Clark, Cristy Robinson, and Brooke Kenny, and Australia’s Ivana Popovic. Kalachova downed Danielle Moris, 6-2, 6-4; Clark slipped past Chiara Tommaso, 1-6, 6-0,6-4; Robinson defeated Victoria Hartland, 6-2, 6-3; and Kenny prevailed over Helena Spiris, 6-3, 6-4; The ninth-ranked Popovic stunned No. 6 seed Caitlin Ward, 6-1, 6-2, and will challenge Lee in the quarterfinal round.

After securing a Round of 8 slots in the singles event, Lee rested for only a couple of hours and returned to Court 12 with partner Ayana Rengiil of Palau to play an extended game versus the pair of Japan’s Asuka Kata and Australia’s Gabriella Ioannou.

While Lee eased her way to a victory in the first set of her singles match against McInroy, the former and Rengiil went neck-and-neck opposite Kata and Ioannou before escaping with a 7-6 (5) win. The two Pacific Oceania players then gassed out in the second set, allowing their foes to cruise to a 6-1 triumph and send the game in a super-tiebreaker third set.

In the deciding set, Lee and Rengiil got their acts together and made a big comeback with a tough 10-8 triumph that moved them to the quarterfinals. In the Round of 8 game, which will be played today, Lee and Rengiil will square off against Japan’s Sophie Hamada and New Zealand’s Sophie Michl, who came off an upset over the No. 7 seed Kiwi duo of Kalachova and Ruby Spencer, 6-4, 6-2.