Race names Palau Mini Games team
CNMI National Tennis coach Jeff Race has named his seven-man squad to the 2005 Palau South Pacific Mini Games this July and August.
Joining shoo-ins Todd Montgomery and Race himself in the men’s team are promising netters Tim Quan, Daniel Son, and Ralph Buenaventura, while making up the women’s team are Kana Aikawa and Amanda Weindl.
Of the seven, only Montgomery, Race, and Aikawa are returnees from the team that competed in the 2003 Suva South Pacific Games.
The other members of the Fiji team were Jung Mun Chung and Peter Sinclair. Chung begged off from the 2005 Mini Games team because of college, while Sinclair has relocated to Australia.
True to his earlier statement that he will be picking a young team, Race will be sending two youth netters and three who came from the same ranks to Palau.
Son is known for his wicked forehand and potent service game and is planning to enroll at University of Hawaii-Monoa next school year.
The Monoa campus is the same school Aikawa and Weindl are attending with Aikawa furthering her tennis skills as part of the women’s team and Weindl getting training as an umpire.
Quan and Buenaventura are two of the most promising 18-and-under players of the CNMI. Quan won the Wadonga Classic in Australia last January and is currently in both the basketball and tennis teams of Hawaii Preparatory Academy. Buenaventura is enrolled at Grace Christian Academy and was named NMASA 2003 Student Athlete of the Year. He has dominated the CNMI junior rankings the past two years.
Aside from his coaching responsibilities with the CNMI team, Race also captained the Pacific Oceania Davis Cup team in its upset against seeded Lebanon last month. He matriculated at Chapman University.
Race used to be the CNMI’s best national player but that distinction now belongs to Montgomery.
The former University of Kansas Jayhawk start is coming off doubles and singles wins in the Coca-Cola Tennis Championships two weeks ago and if not for an early match up with Juan Langton two years ago, he would have given the islands a respectable finish in Suva.
