NMI team begins NPQ challenge today

The hopes of the CNMI in the 2005 North Pacific Qualifying tournament lay on the shoulders of 11 junior netters, who began their journey when they boarded a plane to neighboring Guam yesterday morning.

Coached by Reo Arriola, the team consists of seven boys and three girls, with Tim Quan, Ralph Buenaventura, and Nicolas Son set to spearhead the Commonwealth’s charge in the boys’ 18-and-under division; Ji Hoon Heo, Calvin Yang, Keith Gabaldon and Russell Buenaventura in the boys’ 14-and-under division; Mayuko Arriola in the girls’ 18-and-under division; and Vivian Lee, Lila Mailman, and Audrey Motto in the girls’ 14-and-under division.

“Like coach Jeff [Race] said earlier, I think this is the best team we have ever put together for the NPQ,” Reo Arriola said prior to departure. “They are playing well and hopefully we can get the job done and get as much players qualified.”

The five-day tournament, which begins today and concludes this Friday, June 17, serves as a qualifying event for the 16th ITF Pacific Oceania Junior Tennis Championships, which will be held from Aug. 16 to Aug. 20 in Fiji. Only eight players out of the entire field will advance and make up the North Pacific team, with the top two in each division qualifying.

In order to qualify, the NMI netters must get past other top gun players from host Guam, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, and the Marshall Islands.

Earlier, Race, who serves as the vice president of the Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association, expressed his confidence that the team could possibly bag seven of the eight qualifying slots.

“I think we’re going to have the most successful [North Pacific Qualifying] that we’ve ever had,” Race said. “Our team has worked really hard this year and we have a lot of dedicated young players on this team. I really think seven out of eight of the North Pacific team could be from the NMI. I would say for sure we’ll have five, we might have six, and possibly seven.”

Missing the tournament this year due to school obligations are defending 18-and-under champion Dean Decicatoria of Guam and Saipan’s Jung Mun Chung.

At the Fiji competition, all competitors in the singles and doubles of each age group will earn points for their team. The team with the most points at the end of the competition receives the coveted Regional Team Trophy.

At last year’s qualifier held at the American Memorial Park, four NMI netters had their stuff working for them and secured slots for the Championships. Quan placed runner-up in the boys’ 18-and-under category, Heo won the boys’ 14-and-under crown, and Kanani Ashraf defeated Arriola in the finals of their 14-and-under tiff.

Ashraf went on to place fourth at Fiji, while Arriola finished in seventh place. For his part, Heo placed fifth for the second straight year while Quan finished eighth.

The four were grouped with netters from Nauru, Kiribati, and Guam and helped the North Pacific team place second with 90 points. Western Pacific—Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea—took the top prize with 139 points while Eastern Pacific—Cook Islands, Tonga, Samoa, and American Samoa—finished third with 82 points.