Carol wins first Junior ITF title

The CNMI’s Carol Lee reached a milestone last weekend after clinching her first Junior ITF Circuit championship.

Lee partnered with Skyler Marie Grace Grishuk of the U.S in beating Gabon’s Ella Avomo and Serbia’s Elena Gemovic in the doubles finals of the RUC Tennis Junior Open last Friday (Saturday on Saipan) at the Tennis Clos de l’aviation Route d’El Jadida in Casablanca, Morocco.

The No. 1 seed Lee and Grishuk won the opening set of their title match against the second-ranked Avomo and Gemovic, 6-3, but missed a sweep when the eventual runners-up came back swinging in the second set with a 6-3 triumph. Then in the deciding super-tiebreaker third set, the Top 2 seeds in the 16-team field went back and forth before Lee and Grishuk eked out an 11-9 triumph.

Lee and Grishuk’s tough victory in the finals came a day after they eased past No. 3 seeds Oumaima Aziz of Morocco and Joanne Zuger of Switzerland in the semifinals at the upper half of the draw, 6-3, 6-3. At the lower half, Avomo and Gemovic downed No. 4 Pilar Harper of Spain and Bulgaria’s Daniella Dimitrova in similar scores to set up the championship showdown between the Top 2 seeds in the doubles competition.

The finals was pretty even as shown in the scores in the first two sets, but Lee and Grishuk showed some nerves in the end to pull off the close win and give the former her first title in the Junior ITF Circuit in her third and last tournament in Morocco this year.

Before her victory in the RUC Tennis Junior Open, the 15-year-old Lee made two finals appearances in singles and one in doubles. She lost to Lisa Mays of Australia, 4-6, 3-6, in the Open Junior BNP PARIBAS de Nouvelle-Caledonie in New Caledonia last year. In the doubles finals of the same tournament, Lee and Palau’s Ayana Rengiil bowed to their Japanese foe, 5-7, 4-6, while in the Oceania Open Junior Championships in Fiji last year, the CNMI bet bowed to Australia’s Kaitlin Stains in the singles finale, 4-6, 1-6. The Commonwealth junior player had numerous quarterfinals and semis stints in world ranking events since joining the Junior ITF Circuit mid 2015.

With her doubles victory in the Grade 4 tournament, Lee did not only get her first Junior ITF title, but she also earned 40 ranking points. Junior ITF has yet to add Lee’s ranking points, but the world No. 330 is assured to go up the ladder several notches after her triumph in Casablanca.

From Morocco, Lee is scheduled to return to Fiji this afternoon to continue training at the ITF/OTF regional facility and prepare for two ranking events in New Caledonia. Once her tournaments in the French territory are over, the CNMI player will go back to Fiji to join three more competitions.

NMI Junior Championships
Meanwhile, action in the main draw in the girls and boys singles and doubles events of the 2017 Northern Marianas Junior Championships will kick off tomorrow, while qualifying games in the boys singles started yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club court.

Players from Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Chinese-Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, India, Australia, and Guam will be battling for bragging rights and ranking points in the Grade 5 tournament. Several CNMI junior players are also entered in the competition.