[B]By ROSELYN B. MONROYO[\/B]
\n[I]roselyn_monroyo@saipantribune.com
\nREPORTER[\/I]<\/p>\n
CNMI junior tennis team members Rafael Jones and Christian Miller swept their opening day matches in the ITF Oceania Plate Sunday at the Robin Mitchell Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka, Fiji.<\/p>\n
Jones, who finished fourth in the 2008 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships last week, continued his impressive debut in Fiji winning all two matches in the junior boys division on Day 1.<\/p>\n
Jones first defeated Guam\u2019s Cory Morrison, 6-2, 6-1, and completed an opening-day sweep with a 6-0 (retired) triumph over Muller Afemui of Tonga.<\/p>\n
The 13-year-old CNMI netter now shares the Pool B lead with Devin Khatri of Fiji, who topped Afemui, 6-1, 6-0, and Christian Duchnak of American Samoa, 2-6, 6-4, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Jones was set to battle Duchnak and Alex Beddoes of the Cook Islands on Day 2 of the five-day tournament yesterday. Results of these matches were unavailable at press time.<\/p>\n
Over in Pool A, Miller went 2-for-2 on the opening day, beating John Martin Kaiulo of Papua New Guinea and Xyril Posala of Samoa.<\/p>\n
Miller defeated Kaiulo in straight sets, 6-4, 6-0, and bounced back from an opening set loss to Posala to pull off a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s second day assignments yesterday were against Devrath Narayan and Robin Morove of Papua New Guinea.<\/p>\n
The top two players in each pool will advance to the cross-over semifinals with the No. 1 player in Pool A meeting the No. 2 player in Pool B for the first finals ticket and Pool B\u2019s top placer dueling Pool A\u2019s second finisher for the other championship berth.<\/p>\n
In Pool A of the senior girls division, Thea Minor split her opening day matches.<\/p>\n
Minor started her campaign in the Oceania Plate event on a winning note, defeating Lorish Puluspene of Papua New Guinea, 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n
But Minor failed to post a clean record on Day 1 after bowing to Adalyn Hazelman of Fiji in three sets.<\/p>\n
The 13-year-old Minor drew first blood against the 15-year-old Hazelman, eking out a 7-5 victory in the opening set. But her much older foe recovered and took the last two sets, 6-3, 6-3, to steal the win.<\/p>\n
Dina Jones is also playing in Pool A, but had a tough time on Day 1, dropping all two matches.<\/p>\n
The 16-year-old CNMI netter bowed to Hazelman in her first game, 2-6, 3-6, and failed to bounced back in the second match, losing to Leilani Duchnak of American Samoa, 1-6, 0-6.<\/p>\n
Jones was hoping to enter the win column yesterday, as she faced Minor and Losana Vosa of Fiji on Day 2. Minor\u2019s other game on Day 2 was against Duchnak.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Minor entered the finals of the girls\u2019 13-and-under doubles in the POJC Friday.<\/p>\n
Minor teamed up with Shawn Adams of FSM and won their semifinals match against Puluspene and Lorraine Bani of Vanuatu, 6-0, 6-4.<\/p>\n
But Minor and Adams lost to Fiji\u2019s tandem of Annie Shannon and Tarani Kamoe in the title match, 3-6, 2-6.<\/p>\n
In the other boys\u2019 13-and-under doubles match, Miller and Jones won their first game against Fiji\u2019s Geordie Daulaca and Kaiulo, 6-1, 6-1, but bowed in the semifinals against Ducknak and Posala, 4-6, 2-6.<\/p>\n
The pair of Miller and Jones settled for third when they downed Morove and Khatri, 6-3, 6-4. Tahiti\u2019s Karl Yomes and New Caledonia\u2019s Clement Coarraze ruled the boys\u2019 13-and-under doubles after beating Duchnak and Posala, 6-0, 6-1.<\/p>\n
CNMI girls\u2019 18-under player Mayuko Arriola joined forces with Guam\u2019s Alea Dugan, but lost in the battle for third place against Litia Godinet of American Samoa and Kesaia Mu\u2019amoholeva of Tonga, 4-6, 4-6. Samoa\u2019s Steffi Carruthers and American Samoa\u2019s Leilani Duchnak won in the finals against the Solomon Island\u2019s Zinnia Leamana and PNG\u2019s Marcia Tere-Apisah, 7-5, 7-5.<\/p>\n
An injured Ji Hoon Heo teamed up with Guam\u2019s William Koo and dropped their first game against Duncan Maetoloa and Ian Honila of the Solomon Islands, 6-0, 6-0. The pair of Vanuatu\u2019s Lorenzo Pineda, who defeated Heo in the boys\u2019 singles finals, and Fiji\u2019s William O\u2019Connell was the doubles champion in the boys\u2019 18-under division. Pineda and O\u2019Connell prevailed in the finals over Maetoloa and Honila, 6-1, 6-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNMI junior tennis team members Rafael Jones and Christian Miller swept their opening day matches in the ITF Oceania Plate Sunday at the Robin Mitchell Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka, Fiji.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}