Lee earns 2 finals stints in New Caledonia

The CNMI’s Carol Lee, left, and Palau’s Ayana Rengiil, pose with their runner-up trophies in the doubles event of the 2016 Open Junior BNP PARIBAS de Nouvelle-Caledonie held last week in Noumea, New Caledonia. (Oceania Tennis Federation)

Carol Lee nearly claimed her first ITF Juniors title after her back-to-back finals appearances in the 2016 Open Junior BNP PARIBAS de Nouvelle-Caledonie in Noumea, New Caledonia over the weekend.

Lee booked a finals berth in the singles event of the Grade 5 tournament after eliminating Australia’s Madison Bishop in a three-set semis match. The second-ranked Lee dropped the opening set to her No. 5 seed foe, 4-6, but remained in contention for a finals ticket after escaping with a 7-6 (6) in the second. In the deciding third set, Lee picked up where she left off for an easy 6-1 win.

Lee’s victory foiled an all-Australia finale in the division. Actually, the CNMI junior player was the only non-Aussie in the Final Four cast. The Land Down Under’s Lisa Mays and Stella Cliffe were the other semifinalists with the former and top-ranked in the field winning the battle for the finals slot at the upper half of the draw, 6-1, 6-2. Mays eventually took the singles championship after ending Lee’s series of wins in the finale, 6-3, 6-4.

After missing her first ITF Juniors crown last Friday, the 14-year-old Lee returned to the court the following day to partner with Palau’s Ayana Rengiil and face the Japanese pair of Otoha Aoki and Koharu Niimi in the doubles finale. The Japan bets went on to sweep the Pacific Ocenia duo, but the latter pair fought hard before losing, 5-7, 4-6.

Earlier in the semifinals, Lee and Rengiil romped past No. 4 Sophie Maho Hamada and Kokomi Koyama , 6-0, 6-2, to deny Japan a 1-2 finish in the doubles contest. The other Final Four pairing saw the unraked Aoki and Koharu stunning No. 3 Bishop and New Zealand’s Janvhi Clark, 6-4, 6-1.

Lee and Rengiil barged into the semis following a close 7-6 (3), 3-6, 10-6 quarterfinal victory over Australia’s IvyMclean and Holly Stewart, while the former pair’s fellow Pacific Oceania Touring Team members Isabel Heras and Tania Tan lost to Bishop and Clark, 3-6, 1-6. Tan and Heras advanced to the Round of 8 after ousting Australia’s Luciana Kunkle and Mia Katharina Savio, 7-6 (4), 6-3.

Meanwhile, Lee’s finals stints in New Caledonia were first times as she just made it to the semifinals (and lost) twice in her earlier ITF Juniors events.

She bowed to Hong Kong’s Claudia Ng in their Final Four showdown, 3-6, 2-6, in the Oceania Open Junior Championships in Fiji, in August 2015. Then in November last year, Lee joined the Singapore ITF Junior Championships and also moved into the semifinals, but she and the host’s Charmaine Seah fell to China’s Xin Yu Wang and Tingting Pei, 6-7 (4), 1-6.