NMITA welcomes more opportunities to play Guam

Race

The Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association welcomes the Marianas Cup concept being pushed by the Northern Marianas Sports Association.

“I think it’s a great idea. The more off-island competitions that most sports can get, the better,” said NMITA president and CNMI Sports Hall of Fame coach Jeff Race.

He added though that the Marianas Cup concept may be more important for other sports compared to tennis because before COVID-19, Commonwealth and Guam junior tennis players have already been meeting regularly through the North Pacific Regional Championships.

“We do have a fair bit of interaction with Guam as we play them every year inthe North Pacific Regional Championships. But if we can work it out we’d welcome more opportunities to go play against Guam,” said Race.

And speaking of the North Pacific Regional Championships, the NMITA head said he’s still not sure if they’ll have it this year following cancellations in 2020 and 2021.

“I’m waiting to hear back from the Oceania Tennis Federation as to what the status is this year if we’re having it. But you know it’s so hard. We thought we’d get out of this thing and Delta would be finished and then Omicron comes along, I don’t know. I guess you just have to roll with the punches. But at some point, when you say ‘we’re just going to take vaccinated people and we’re going to and we’re going to play’…you just can’t stay away forever from this things. You have to jump in at some point,” he said.

Asked if NMITA has required proof of vaccination for its sanctioned tournaments, Race said they haven’t but that he highly encourages tennis players who do sign up to get the vaccine.

“We’re not checking on that. We’re all outdoor here… Although, I tend to think at this point if you haven’t gotten vaccinated then you’re doing something wrong.”

Under NMSA’s Marianas Cup concept, CNMI teams will challenge Guam teams every year. So far, four options on how the Marianas Cup would proceed has been suggested. The first option would be Guam hosting as much as 18 sports. The second option is the CNMI will take the hosting duties. The third is the CNMI and Guam will split the sports with half taking place in the latter and the other half in the former. The fourth, which NMSA president Jerry Tan concedes is the most doable, is individual sports will arrange their respective Marianas Cup events against their counterpart sports federations in Guam.

Tan earlier said the genesis of the Marianas Cup idea came about following the postponement of the 2022 Micronesian Games. He said a lot of athletes training for the 2022 Games in the Marshall Islands would effectively have to wait another year to compete in a regional event.

The Marianas Cup, Tan said, would give athletes the impetus to train year-round because they always have a yearly competition to look forward to.