Abel wins Coconut Classic men’s open

Tomas Abel found himself in the finals to start off his bid in the men’s open singles of the 2024 White-Coconut Classic and won last Monday at the American Memorial Park tennis courts.

The tourney’s Sunday games were rained out, so they had to cut each of the matches short with no deuces—and Abel quickly won over Peter Loken, 5-4, 5-3.

The 44-year-old Abel was the top seed and his first opponent could not make it to their match, so with not a lot of players, all he had to do was wait for an opponent to challenge in the finals. He had hoped to have played more games, but some players in his division were off island.

“My first match was the finals. It sounds like a good thing but it’s not really. I prefer obviously to have played everybody and earned my way in there, and it’s tougher because you don’t get a rhythm going,” he said.

Even with the shortened game and tourney for Abel, he said it was a good finals match against Loken. “Peter played great. We played for I think an hour-and-a-half even though we only played up to 40, but it was a good match.”

Abel said of the tourney, “it was too bad that not a lot of guys were able to play because some of them are traveling, so it was a smaller group of people. But it was still good quality.”

The windy and overcast weather didn’t faze him as much as he said he’s used to it, but had preferred it to be hot instead.

Abel also joined the mixed-up doubles match, but lost in the finals with junior partner Matthew Zhu against Loken and junior netter Emma Lang, 4-1, 5-3, 10-5. The mixed-up doubles is different from the regular mixed doubles matchup, wherein it’s a mix of adult players and junior players.

In the men’s singles 60+ division last Feb. 11, Dong Min Lee defeated John Bradley, 6-2, 6-1.

The 2024 Coconut Classic began last Feb. 9 to Feb. 11, then from Feb. 16 to last Monday and was organized by the Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association.

Results of the women’s singles open and boys/girls divisions will be posted in the next issues of Saipan Tribune.