Heras marches; Lee, Schorr draw byes in NC

Isabel Heras returns a shot during a local tournament early this year at the Pacific Islands Club hard court. Heras, Carol Lee, and Robbie Schorr are in Caledonia, competing in an ITF Juniors event in Noumea. (Contributed Photo)

The CNMI’s Isabel Heras won her debut in the New Caledonia ITF Junior 2017 after sweeping her opening round foe yesterday at the Ligue Caledonienne De Tennis in Noumea.

Heras, who is seeded No. 8 in the 31-player field, was pitted against the unranked Aimee Brown of New Zealand and recorded a 6-4, 6-3 victory to move into the second round and be in the company of fellow Commonwealth junior player Carol Lee.

Lee, the No. 1 seed in the tournament, automatically made it to the second round after drawing a bye in Round 1 and will play her first game today against Japan’s Hitomi Tokayama. The Japanese earned the right to challenge the Pacific’s highest-ranked junior player in the world (No. 314) after downing New Zealand’s Lara McNaughten, 6-2, 6-4.

Joining Lee and Tokoyama on the second round qualifiers at the upper half of the draw were New Caledonia’s Lysiane Moto-Nekiriai, Australia’s Chiara Di Tommaso, Julia Varvarigos, and Lara Kaplan, Singapore’s Ashley Kei Yim, and New Zealand’s Holly Stewart.

At the lower half of the draw, Heras will be paired against France’s Helena Mohamed in the second round, while other matches are New Zealand’s Sarah Weekley against Japan’s Otoha Aoki and Australia’s Roopa Bains versus New Zealand’s Amelia Lawson. The two remaining Round 2 berths were still being contested yesterday and results of the Sakura Kurokawa -Sophia Michl and Chloe Katerdjian-Sara Tsukamoto tiffs were unavailable at press time.

In the boys singles, the CNMI’s Robbie Schorr gained an outright Round 2 spot after getting a bye yesterday. He will debut in the New Caledonia tournament today as he takes on No. 13 seed Matteo Savio of Australia.

Schorr will also play in the doubles event and will team up with Tahiti’s Jeremy Guines. The two Pacific Oceania players will collide with No. 7 seeds Kuan Yu Chen of Chinese-Taipei and Kiev Moores of the U.S. in the second round game tomorrow.

In the girls doubles, Lee is also ranked No. 1 along with her Kiwi partner Holly. The CNMI-New Zealand pair had a bye in the first round and will duel the Kiwi duo of Brown and Alysha Nowacki in the second.

Heras and her teammate Michel are also seeded in the division at No. 3 and will meet Japan’s Toyama and Rima Yoshida in the first round.

The New Caledonia ITF Junior 2017 is a Grade 5 competition under the ITF Juniors Circuit. It awards 30 and 20 points to the singles and doubles champions (each player). Twenty, 15, 10, and 5 world ranking points are also at stake for the runner-up, semifinalists, quarterfinalists, and losers in the Last 16 of the singles events, while other points to be won in the doubles are 15 (runners-up), 10 (semifinalists), and 5 (quarterfinalists).

After this week’s tournament, Lee, Schorr, and Heras will also see action in the Open BNP PARIBAS JUNIOR de Nouvelle-Caledonie, which will run from June 12 to 17.