Last chance for junior tennis players

Maria Gregoire serves to Riko Ojima during their girls U14 singles game in last month’s 2017 NMITA Junior Fun Tennis Tournament held at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan. Gregoire and Ojima will collide again in this weekend’s 2017 CNMI Junior Tennis Championships . (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Players wishing to make it to the national team will have its last opportunity to gain ranking points as Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association holds the 2017 CNMI Junior Tennis Championships starting this Saturday at the American Memorial Park courts.

The junior championships is the final tournament under NMITA’s calendar of events for 2016-2017 season and awards the most ranking points among the various competitions the association lines up every year. Players need the points to determine their rankings in their respective age groups and those on top of the list have a strong chance of making it to the CNMI Junior National Team that will compete in the 2017 North Pacific Regional Championships in Guam in June.

This weekend’s competition will feature singles and doubles events in the girls and boys U10, U12, U14, U16, and U18 age groups with over 50 players spread out in the divisions.

The boys U14 singles drew the most players with 11. See Lee, Sam Ryu, Eugene park, and Andy Kim are the seeded players (No. 1 to 4) and will be joined in the tournament by Hyunmin Cho, Seong Gon Heo, Seung Won Lee, Rintaro Miyawaki, Jaehoon Son, Richard Steele, and Jun Wang.

In the boys U12 singles, there are 10 entries led by Top 2 seeds Daniel Kang and Anthony Gregoire. They will battle the division crown against David Kwon, Brandon Lee, Jae Yun Jung, Eu Bin Park, Danny Lee, Andrew Chung, Min Gi Jung, and Jiwoong Kwon.

The boys U16 and U10 have only three and two competitors with Sean Lee, Ken Xue, and Heo entered in the former and La Hunn Lam and Nason Wesssel in the latter. The highly anticipated boys U18 singles, on the other hand, will have Top 2 seeds Robbie Schorr and Vincent Tudela and Steven Goodwin, Tony Kim, Michael Ren, and Ken Song.

In the girls singles, the U12 age group has the most entries (7) with JC Ferrer, Anika Camacho, Ashley Cho, Hye Jin Elliot, Olivia Hwang, Helen Kim, and Yejin Son competing for the division crown. The U18 category will be a four-way fight among Grace Choi, Isabel Heras, Malika Miyawaki, and Tania Tan, while the girls U10 has the same number of entries in Le Mee Lam, Dana Lee, Soarin Oh, and Hoo Wang. In the U14, Maria Gregoire will go head-to-head with Riko Ojima.

Meanwhile, majority of the players entered in the singles events are also playing in the doubles.