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Carol wins opener in Korea
The CNMI’s Carol Lee is all smiles after winning her first match in the 2019 Seogwipo Asia/Oceania Closed Junior Championships last Monday in Jeju, South Korea. (Contributed Photo)[/cap
The CNMI’s Carol Lee swept her way to the second round of the 2019 Seogwipo Asia/Oceania Closed Junior Championships last Monday in Jeju, South Korea.
Lee needed only two sets to beat South Korean qualifier Minseo Kim, 6-4, 6-2, and advance to Round 2 of the hard court tournament.
The Commonwealth player is seeded No. 13 in the Grade B1 competition (fourth highest in the ITF Juniors Circuit), which will award 280 world ranking points to the singles champion and 210 to the doubles winners. The 17-year-old Lee entered the high-level event ranked No. 128 and with a career singles record of 111-51 and 21-11 this season.
After eliminating her unranked opponent, Lee will next face either Chinese-Taipei’s Chao Yi Wang or another South Korean player, Hwui Won Wi. Wang and Wi were scheduled to duel in one of the nine remaining first round matches yesterday, but results of their game were unavailable at press time.
Also pending were the results of Lee and Vipasha Mehra’s doubles tiff against the South Korean pair of Hui Geyong Kim and Se Yeon Yang. Lee and her teammate from India are seeded No. 7 in the doubles draw, which has Indonesia’s Priska Nugroho and Hong Kong’s Cody Wong as the top-ranked duo.
The world No. 28 Nugroho is also seeded first in the singles play, while China’s Zuoxuan Bai (world No. 29) is at No. 2.
In the boys division, world No. 17 Bu Yunchaokete of China and No. 15 Shunsuke Mitsui of Japan are the Top 2 seeds in the singles event.
Meanwhile, this year’s Seogwipo Asia/Oceania Closed Junior Championships is Lee’s second appearance in the B1 tournament. In her first stint in the Asia/Oceania event, Lee made it all the away to the Round of 16 of the 64-player field of the singles contest. The CNMI bet won over South Korea’s Ji Yon Lee, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, and China’s Jiaqi Wang, 6-3, 6-3, before losing to South Korea’s Cherry Kim, 4-6, 5-7, in the battle for a quarterfinals ticket.
