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Lee and company join last ranking event in Fiji
The CNMI’s Carol Lee, right, and Palau’s Ayana Rengiil are teaming up anew as they compete in the doubles event of the 2016 Oceania Closed Junior Championship, beginning today in Lautoka, Fiji. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)
The CNMI’s Carol Lee, Tania Tan, and Isabel Heras will be competing in their last Juniors ITF ranking event in Fiji for the season this week.
The three Commonwealth junior bets are among the 18 Pacific Oceania players entered in the 2016 Oceania Closed Junior Championship, which was scheduled to start last Monday and will run until this Friday. Matches in the first two days were called off due to rain, leaving participants in both the girls and boys singles event with no choice but to play their first matches today.
Lee is at the top half of the 32-player draw and will face Australian wild card entry Caitlyn Portela on Court 3 of the ITF/OTF Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka. Heras is also at the upper half of the draw and will have a tougher opening round assignment in the No. 6 seed Jessica Zaviacic of Australia. Tan, on the other hand, has the toughest foe among the three CNMI players as she is paired against the second-seeded Kaitlin Staines of Australia in the first round.
Besides Lee, Tan, and Heras, seven other Pacific Oceania players are competing in the girls singles event. The list includes’ Palau’s Ayana Rengiil, Tahiti’s Naia Guitton, Papua New Guinea’s Violet Apisah, the Solomon Island’s Georjemah Row and Vinda Teally, and Fiji’s Mulan Kamoe and Ruby Coffin.
Majority of Pacific Oceania’s bets in the singles play are also entered in the doubles event with Lee and Rengiil partnering anew and leading the group’s bid for the championship. Other pairings are Heras and Australia’s Luciana Kunkel, Row and Teally, Coffin and Vienna Kumar Fong, Kamoe and Guitton, and the top-ranked Apisah and Petra Hule of Australia.
The Oceania Closed is a B2 grade tournament, offering the highest points among the series of Junior ITF ranking events scheduled in Fiji. The singles champion will get 120 rankings points, 80 to the runner-up, and 60, 40, 25, and 10 to the quarterfinalists, losers in Last 16, and losers in Last 32 (for 64-player draw), respectively. In the doubles, points at stake are 80, 60, 40, 25, and 10 for (in order) the champions, runners-up, semifinalists, quarterfinalists, and losers in Last 16.
