La Hunn plans to remain on Saipan to train

The boys 14-and-under champion of the recent 2023 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships will be calling Saipan home for a while as La Hunn Lam will remain on the island to train.

“I am planning to stay for a while on Saipan to train with coaches Jeff Race, Colin Ramsey, and NMI players,” he told Saipan Tribune.

Lam, who recently returned to the island after an almost month-long stay in Fiji, said this year’s POJC and two tournaments in the ITF J30 competition really honed his tennis skills.

While he admitted that the two succeeding tournaments after the POJC were not as fruitful as far as wins were concerned compared to the POJC, he still picked up invaluable experience playing against top-caliber tennis players. 

“The first tournament, in the first match I won the first set but I started to have a stomachache when the second set was going on and I had to retire because of serious diarrhea during the match. It was horrible as I had never experienced that kind of pain during a tennis match. I have learned that I really have to watch out what I eat specially during the tournaments,” he said.

Prior to his bout of diarrhea, Lam beat an Australian player in the qualifiers.

In doubles play, Lam played with a player from Papua New Guinea and lost in the first round of the main draw.

Lam had better fortune in the second ITF J30 tournament.

“The second tournament I felt better. I won the first match pretty easily but lost my second match to a Japanese player who was 16 years old. I could have played much better if I had made more intentional shots with consistency. I was leading in many points, 40-15, and had many deuces but I could not win them. I have to work on how to be more accurate and consistent when I am about to close the points,” he said.

Lam then played the main draw in doubles with Junior Taufunu from Solomon Islands, his teammate in this year’s tournament in Sri Lanka. They played the POJC singles champion and one of Tahiti’s best 16s players and lost, 0-6, 4-6. 

Win or lose, Lam is just appreciative that he’s able to live his dream of playing tennis.

Lam then thanked his ever supportive parents—Billy and Joo—as well as Race, Ramsay and Oceania Tennis Federation coaches for guiding him in Fiji.

“I also want to thank my teammates and friends. It’s been an awesome experience because of all their support,” he added.

Race said in a sign of Lam’s maturity, his ward gave him a very good analysis of his game and what he needs to do differently. “He said he didn’t think of the things [he needed to do] during the game. I told him that the ability to do that is the next big step for him,” he said.