7 survive Jr. ITF qualifier

Seven made the grade in the rain-delayed qualifying tournament of the 2015 IT&E Northern Marianas Junior Championships to enter the main draw of the Junior ITF event.

In the boys singles, Hong Kong’s Denton Ho, Japan’s Yusuke Miyai and Rintaro Oka, and Germany’s Marvin Bockers prevailed in yesterday’s qualifying games to make it to the main draw, while Chisato Hayakawa, Haruka Hoshino, and Yumi Takemura had the same feat in the girls division.

Korea’s Justin Cheung returns to Japan’s Haruka Aomizu during their game in the qualifying tournament for the 2015 IT&E Northern Marianas Junior Championships yesterday at the American Memorial Park tennis courts. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)

Ho drew a bye in the first round and defeated the CNMI’s Ken Song in the second round, 6-0, 6-0, to advance to the main draw. Song moved a win away from bagging a main draw seat after eliminating fellow Commonwealth player Vincent Tudela, 3-6, 7-6 (1), 10-6, in the upper half bracket pairing.

In other upper half bracket results, Miyai clinched a main draw berth following his victories over the U.S.’s Kyler Jirasook, 6-1, 6-1, and Singapore’s Gabriel Chum.

In the bottom half of the draw, Oka swept his two foes to soldier on. He first shut out the CNMI’s Steven Goodwin, 6-0, 6-0 before topping Australia’s Brandon Truong, 6, 1, 6-0. Truong won his opening game against the Philippines’ Julian Dayrit, 6-4, 6-0.

Bockers duplicated Oka’s sweeps as the former eased past the CNMI’s Haruya Eda, 6-0, 6-0, before ousting South Korea’s Justin Cheung, 6-0, 6-3.

In the girls division, Hakayawa downed fellow Japanese Minori Otsuka, 6-1, 6-4; Hoshino thwarted Riho Yuasa, 6-4, 7-6 (8); and Takemura edged Risako Umekuni, 7-5, 6-1, to join Aki Miyazaki in the main draw. Miyazaki drew a bye in the qualifier, automatically advancing to the main draw.

The girls singles’ main draw was released yesterday with Japan’s Ayumi Hirata and the Philippines’ Maria Dominique Ong getting the Top 2 seeds in the 32-player field. Hirata is scheduled to face the CNMI’s Carol Lee today.

Lee will be joined in the main draw by fellow Commonwealth players Mikayla Lopez, Negahr Rastguiy, Tammy Ackerman, Ami Tsukagoshi, Julia Ishikawa, Isabel Heras, and Mimi Sakano. Completing the CNMI roster are wild card entries Tania Tan and Maliwa Miyawaki, while players from Singapore, U.S., Hong Kong, Palau, and Japan are also in the main draw.

In the boys division, the Top 2 seeds are Hong Kong’s Ching Lam and Australia’s Jesse Delaney. The CNMI’s Luther Lizama, Michael Ren, Tommy Choi, and Robbie Schorr are the wild card entries and will have their opening games in the Grade 5 event today.

Today’s matches will be played at the Pacific Islands Club and Kanoa Resort courts. Yesterday, qualifying games took place at the American Memorial Park tennis courts due to the wet courts at PIC. Matches were also delayed with the first one starting past 11am instead of 8:30am because of the intermittent rain yesterday morning.