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Ramsey, 8 others in NMI Junior ITF qualifier
Nine CNMI players will have to survive a qualifying tournament before earning slots to the main draw of this month’s 2015 IT&E Northern Marianas Junior Championships.
Colin Ramsey led the list, as he is the highest ranked Commonwealth bet in the qualifying event at No. 1,624. He will be joined by No. 1,957 Tommy Choi and unranked Luther Lizama, Michael Ren, Robbie Schorr, Vincent Tudela, Steven Goodwin, Clayton Izuka, and Haruya Eda.
The nine CNMI players are among the 26 individuals vying for the 10 remaining main draw slots in the boys singles division. Others hoping to make it to the 32-player main draw are Hong Kong’s Zheng Zhang, Arthur Chau, Fabian Calloud, Denton Ho, Wesley Law, Tin Wong, Guam’s Sidney Gadsen, Australia’s Brandon Truong, Korea’s Justin Cheun, Chinese-Taipei’s Yi Jui Lo and Yu-Hsiang Su, Singapore’s Enzo Chua, the U.S.’ Kyler Jirasook, and Japan’s Rintaro Oka, Ryusuke Tanaka, and Kazuki Shimizu.
The qualifying tournament will be held a few days before the May 19 kick-off date of the Junior ITF event that the Commonwealth will be hosting for the third straight year. Matches will be played at the Pacific Islands Club and Kanoa Resort tennis courts.
Meanwhile, China’s Chukang Wang and Yi Zhou Liu are the two highest ranked players in the main draw at No. 225 and 422, respectively, and they will be competing against players from Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, U.S., Korea, and the Philippines. All the 22 players in the main draw have Junior ITF ranking points.
Hong Kong has Ching Lam, Alester Magalit, and Wai Leuk Lee in the main draw, while theJapanese are represented by Tomohiro Masabayashi, Rimpei Kawakami, Kento Yamada, Shinji Hazawa, and James Kent Trotter. The Philippines has two main draw entries in Marcen Angelo Gonzales and returnee Jerome Romualdez, while Yohan Sung is making his third appearance in the IT&E-sponsored event along with fellow South Korean Seon Yong Han.
Shaheed Alam and Sherwin Foo are Singapore’s bets in the main draw, which also has Australian and returnee Jesse Delaney, Thailand’s Itchya Meesommon and Palaphoom Kovapitukted, and the American Jack Pulliam.
The boys singles division will have an open race as last year’s finalists Jack Barber of the U.S. and Japan’s Taisei Miyamoto are missing the third edition of the Grade 5 event. Barber outlasted Miyamoto in a three-set finale last year, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2.
