Race touts junior players games in Fiji

The CNMI’s junior players received high remarks from coach Jeff Race at the conclusion of the 2015 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships at the Regional Training Center in Lautoka, Fiji.

The CNMI’s Malika Miyawaki, left, and Tania Tan pose with their silver medals in the doubles event of the 2015 Pacific Oceania Juniors Championships during the awards ceremony last Wednesday in Fiji. Also in the photo is Fiji Tennis Association president Richard Breene. (Contributed Photo)

“After nine days of tennis, the CNMI finished second in the Pacific Oceania. Tahiti came in first again. Without six of our top players joining us, it is a very excellent result.” Race said an in an email sent to Saipan Tribune last Wednesday night after the awards ceremony for the individual and team events in the annual competition.

The Commonwealth brought 14 players to Fiji to join the girls U12, U14, and U16 and boys U12 and U14 singles and doubles events and defeated Fiji, American Samoa, Kiribati, Norfolk Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau in the rankings. Teams were ranked based on how far their respective players have gone through in the singles and doubles events.

Of the CNMI’s 14 players, 10 made it to the quarterfinals, six in the semis, and two in the finals. Siblings Conatsu, Coume, and Ericka Tuttle advanced to the Round of 8 of the girls U12 singles, while Tania Tan, Malika Miyawaki, and Mimi Sakano had the same achievement in the girls U14 singles. Ken Song and Robbie Schorr and Carol Lee and Isabel Heras also marched into the quarterfinals in the boys U14 and girls U16 singles, respectively.

Tan and Lee went on to move into the finals with the latter eventually topping her division, while Conatsu, Song, and Schorr reached the semifinals. In the doubles, the Kaga siblings and Tan and Miyawaki barged into the finals, while Vincent Tudela (with FSM’s Joab William), Lee (with Palau’s Ayana Rengiil), and Sakano (with American’s Samoa’s Hanisi Ledua) earned Final Four berths. The 14 CNMI players, including boys U12’s Ji Min Woo and Seung Jin Paik and U16’s Ami Tsukagoshi, also anchored the North Pacific Team in the team event, battling the West and East squads.

“Our girls U12 won the team championship. Our girls and boys U14 almost won their division but went down in very tense matches. Many of our players played the finest matches of their life,” Race said.

The Kaga sisters and Tuttle defeated their East and West counterparts in the team event, while the CNMI’s girls U14 and U16 and boys U14 managed to get one win in the two-day team competition with a couple of their games going into the super-tiebreaker third set.