Lee advances to quarterfinals

Carol Lee made it to the quarterfinals of the doubles event in the Calvo’s Select Care ITF Junior Championships yesterday at the Rick Ninete Tennis Centre in Hagatna, Guam. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Carol Lee and Palau’s Ayana Rengiil made it to the quarterfinals of the doubles event in the Calvo’s Select Care ITF Junior Championships after surviving a tough Japanese pair yesterday at the Rick Ninete Tennis Centre in Hagatna, Guam.

Lee and Rengiil needed a super tiebreaker third set to slip past Nanami Okamoto and Saki Oyama and avoid an early upset in the doubles field where the Pacific Oceania players are seeded second. The 14-year-old Lee and the 18-year-old Rengiil won the opening set convincingly, 6-2, but were denied the sweep, as the Japanese duo stunned their ranked opponents with a 6-1 triumph in the second. In the deciding super tiebreaker third set, Lee and Rengiil worked their way back into the game and pulled off a 10-4 victory to advance to the quarterfinals.

“I lost momentum and focus in the second set after a bathroom break in the first set. I made mistakes in my volleys. Fortunately, my teammate cheered me on and trusted me, so in the third set, I regained my confidence and began hitting good shots. It’s a lesson learned for me—not to go on a long break,” the Saipan Community School student said.

In the Round of 8, Lee and Rengiil will be paired against another Japanese tandem in Himeno Sakatsume and Tomoka Yoshida, who took only two sets to eliminate Chinese-Taipei’s Yuelin Chen and India’s Amritalakshmi Shanmugam, 6-1, 6-0.

Two more Japanese teams marched into the quarterfinals of the lower half of the bracket. The third-ranked Sakura Hosogi and Shiko Tsukada booked the third Round of 8 slots in their group after sweeping Chinese-Taipei’s Ya Chi Hsu and the U.S.’ Casey Cummings, 6-1, 6-2. The fourth quarterfinals berth in the bottom half of the draw went to Mana Kawamura and Mahiro Koga who defeated the CNMI’s Tania Tan and Japan’s Fuka Sakano, 6-2, 6-0.

At the top half of the draw, the quarterfinalists were the No. 1 seeded pair of Charmaine Seah of Singapore and the U.S.’ Sara Tsukamoto, Japan’s Urara Hitomi and Nagomi Tanaka and Sophia Hamada and Kokomi Koyama and Chinese-Taipei’s Ling Hsuan Wei and Ting-Chien Wei.

Tsukamoto and Seah shut down Guam’s Anika SAchdev and Victoria Smith, 6-0, 6-0 to set a quarterfinal duel against Hitomi and Tanaka, a 6-1, 6-4 winner against Hong Kong’s Avril Look and Skylar Wan. The Chinese-Taipei pair also posted a 6-1, 6-4 triumph over Japan’s Airi Ohashi and Riho Yuasa to earn a Round of 8 meeting against Hamda and Koyama, who ousted Finland’s Elisa Hirn and Hong Kong’s Alicia Yue, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 12-10).

Meanwhile, the girls singles play will resume today with Lee battling Ling Hsuan Wei for the quarterfinals ticket. Lee and Wei moved into the second round following their two-set victories against Japan’s Karen Kondo and Nagomi Tanaka, respectively.