Tan, Lee win last game in Australia

The CNMI’s Tania Tan makes a backhand return during one of her games in the 2015 14/U Australian Championships last week at the Melbourne Park. (Oceania Tennis)

The CNMI’s Tania Tan and Carol Lee lifted Pacific Oceania to a 3-0 victory against Tasmania in the final ranking games in the 2015 12U & 14U Australian Teams Championships yesterday at the Melbourne Park.

Lee gave the Grand Slam Development Fund-backed girls U14 squad its first win after sweeping Charlotte Ingram, 4-0, 4-0. Lee then teamed up with Tan in the lone doubles match and the Commonwealth pair topped Lucy Jones and Chelsea Leggett, 4-1, 4-2. Earlier in the second singles match, Naia Guitton defeated Jones, 1-4, 1-4, to seal the early victory for Pacific Oceania, which avoided a last place finish with its shutout of Tasmania.

The singles win against Tasmania was Lee’s third and second in a row in the team tournament and it came after she played for about five hours (just in the singles event) last Sunday. Her longest match lasted for two hours and 33 minutes and the CNMI bet managed to savor the sweet taste of victory against Tara Gilich of the No. 3 seed Western Australia, 4-6, 6-2, 10-7, in their afternoon game. Earlier in the morning, Lee challenged Patricia Apisah of eventual runner-up New South Wales in a nearly two-hour match with the latter escaping with a 6-4, 0-6, 10-5 win.

Last Saturday, Lee also competed in two three-set super tiebreak games and had a split, winning over Australian Capital Territory’s Annerly Poulus first, 2-4, 5-3, 10-8, before falling short against Queensland’s Megan Smith, 5-4 (5), 3-5, 7-10. Lee’s two singles matches along with her teammates’ other games lasted for more than six hours and the 13-year-old player endured them fighting off fatigue and knee and ankle injuries.

“For the last three days I played in four super tiebreakers. I was so tired and the tendon in my ankle is injured. I also hurt my toenails, but I kept playing. I lost to Patricia, who is one of the best players in the tournament. Then in the afternoon, I came back to play and beat Tara in three sets. At that time my ankle hurt, but I continued to play because I really wanted to finish the game,” Lee said in a message sent to Saipan Tribune yesterday.

“It was a great experience playing against a lot of good players,” the Saipan Community School student said.

Meanwhile, Lee’s fellow CNMI players, Conatsu Kaga and Ken Song, missed on their bid to enter the win column in their last game in the team tournament, while Robbie Schorr got the elusive victory in the doubles.

Schorr partnered with Tahiti’s Jeremy Guines in slipping past Australian Capital Territory’s Sam Bisa and Daniel Zhang, 5-4, 1-4, 10-4, in the boys U14 doubles. In the singles event, Song bowed to Bisa, 0-4, 0-4.

In the girls U12 division, Kaga lost to Subi Surenraj, 0-4, 1-4, of No. 2 seed NSW.