Ramsey tops men’s open 5.0

Former teammates at the 2023 Pacific Games Colin Ramsey and Nason Wessel faced off against each other in the men’s open 5.0 finals of the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament that was held from last Friday to Sunday at the American Memorial Park tennis courts.

The windy Sunday afternoon held no bearing over Ramsey as he mowed down Wessel, 6-3, 6-2, who is 10 years his junior.

No. 1 seed Ramsey first defeated another former teammate, June Yu, in the semis, 6-3, 6-1, and prior to that, beat Simon Tang, 6-2, 6-1.

The 24-year-old Ramsey showed he was comfortable on the court and throughout the tournament by plowing the high school netters with ease. He didn’t have much older competition as Ramsey shared that No. 2 seed Tomas Abel had to drop out in the middle of the tourney, while Bobby Cruz was in Australia, and Pacific Games teammate Moris Villanueva did not compete.

Ramsey said of Wessel, who won the U16 championships in the tourney a week prior, that “he’s getting better everyday. I think there will be more finals contentions for him.”

In other results in the men’s 3.0 division, John Bradley overpowered Jack Linden, 6-0, 6-2. Bradley went through Andrew Chung in a tough semis matchup, 4-6, 6-2, 14-12, and first breezed past June Kim, 6-0, 6-1.

The mixed doubles 5.0 division was won by David Kwon and Ann Kwon, after they went undefeated in the round-robin format against three other doubles partners.

In the mixed doubles 4.0 division, Andrew Chung and Claire Park won all their matches in the round-robin format, while Edwin Simbulan and Min Han claimed the mixed doubles 3.0 championship. Simbulan and Han defeated John Bradley and Mingyue Pascual, 6-2, 6-2, in the finals.

Fourteen-year-old Wessel, on winning his U16 competition against Simon Tang last week said, “I feel good on winning my U16 match because I showed that I can actually win if I tried to. The competition was hard but I just played calm and it turned out well for me in the end. Simon is my hardest competition because he really knows how to play with my mind a lot, and he’s very fast as well.”

As for his level of play after the Pacific Games, he said, “My tennis skills after the Pacific Games didn’t improve much but the one thing that did improve was my perspective in the game.” He added, “I’m looking at competing in the Micro Games this year because that’s something my family has done when we lived in the [Federated States of Micronesia] and I want to carry on the tradition.”

As for the tourney for organizer Serin Chung, a senior at Saipan International School, said there were a total of 70 participants. “The turnout was great, especially with people coming to watch the matches even if they weren’t playing. This tournament has lots of levels of competition. Especially since we try to get everyone involved. Some divisions are very competitive, with many matches going to super tie.”

She then said, “Thank you to everyone who joined, and thank you to Crowne Plaza, American Memorial Park, Tan Holdings, Northern Marianas Tennis Association, Himawari, Java Joe’s, and MangoSix.”