Junior netters off to fine start

The 15-man CNMI junior tennis team to the 2008 North Pacific Qualifier is off to a fine start after winning a total of 17 games yesterday at the Rick Ninete Tennis Center in Tamuning, Guam.

While the boys and girls 18s and 13s players lost eight games, five of those defeats were exacted by their teammates on head-to-head match-ups.

In the boys’ 18, Russell Buenaventura and Tinian’s Benjie Decena have two wins apiece in Pool B, while James Camacho and Woo Suk Chang won their debuts in Pool A.

Buenaventura beat compatriot Nathan Nutting, 6-0, 6-0, and upended Guam’s Alex Park, 6-0, 6-2.

Decena, for his part, matched Buenaventura with wins over Park (6-0, 6-0) and Federated States of Micronesia’s Alex Kalau (6-2, 6-2). Nutting absorbed a second loss when he succumbed to Guam’s William Koo, 0-6, 2-6.

Camacho and Chang, meanwhile, defeated Guam’s Kento Oikawa, 6-0, 6-0, and FSM’s Chris Yamada, 6-0, 6-0, respectively.

Rafael Jones also has two wins tucked under his belt in Pool A of the boys’ 13. He first beat teammate Dan Camacho, 6-2, 6-3, before upending Jake Panuelo of FSM, 6-1, 6-0. Camacho then bounced back from the loss to Jones by outlasting Jared Lee of Guam, 6-4, 6-4.

In Pool B, Jake Lee mirrored Jones’ success with victories over Kaito Fuji of Palau (7-5, 6-4) and Jericho Akinaga of FSM (6-3, 6-1).

In the girls’ 18, top seed Mayuko Arriola skunked Sophie Finnen of FSM, 6-0, 6-0 in Pool A, while Dina Jones has beaten teammate Theecel Minor, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (4), and FSM’s Samantha Arthur, 6-3, 6-4, in Pool B. Minor also lost to top seed Alea Dugan of Guam, 0-6, 0-6.

Theecel’s younger sister, Thea, is sure making waves in the girls’ 13 as attested by her shutout wins over teammate Jeane Bracken and Ayana Rengiil of Palau in Pool A. Bracken also lost to Ashley Nadler of Guam, 1-6, 4-6.

In Pool B, Amy Arenovski has a 1-1 record after a win over Summer Morrison of Guam (6-1, 6-0) and a close loss to Andrea Lai of Guam, 0-6, 6-4, 3-6.

The Top 3 finishers in the boys’ and girls 18-and-under and boys’ and girls’ 13-and-under advance to the 2008 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships in Lautoka, Fiji, next month.

The islands’ top junior player, Ji Hoon Heo, already has an automatic entry on the North Pacific Team this year and so will not play the NPQ, but instead play in Fiji then in New Caledonia for an ITF event.