The CNMI Junior Team dominated the opening games in the 2011 North Pacific Qualifying Tournament at the Rick Ninete Tennis Center in Guam on Monday.<\/p>\n
Coach Jeff Race said the Commonwealth junior netters had a 26-6 record in Day 1 of the five-day competition, sending a strong signal to their foes that the CNMI bets are out to rule the NPQ anew.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very good first day. We started on the right track and we hope to keep the momentum in the last five days. Though we lost a couple of matches, those came from our players who challenged their fellow CNMI netters,\u201d Race said in a telephone interview with Saipan Tribune on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Race added that top-seeded CNMI netters delivered as expected in the opening day of the competition, boosting the Commonwealth\u2019s chances of winning five of the six singles events in the NPQ.<\/p>\n
In the U18 age group, No. 1-ranked Thea Minor swept Sophie Finnen of the Federated States of Micronesia, 6-2, 6-0. Seven players are entered in the girls U18 division, including Thea\u2019s older sister, Theecel, who went 0-2 in Day 1. In the boys division, Rafael Jones is also seeded first and nailed a straight set win over Guam\u2019s Alexander Ornbo, 6-3, 6-1.<\/p>\n
In the girls U15, Mikayla Lopez and Alina Ishikawa had similar 2-0 slates in Pool A. Lopez shut out Guam\u2019s Julianne Tapel, 6-0, 6-0, and FSM\u2019s Danielle Adams, 6-0, 6-0. Ishikawa also needed only two sets in each match to beat Guam\u2019s Alyssa Bristol, 6-1, 6-2, and Tapel, 6-0, 6-0. In Pool B, Melody Johnson was also undefeated in two games, prevailing over Guam\u2019s Annette Kang, 6-3, 6-2, and Emanuelle Haurillon, 6-1, 6-0.<\/p>\n
Christian Miller and Amami Sakano duplicated Johnson, Ishikawa, and Lopez\u2019s feats. Miller is in Pool A and whipped teammate Seiya Eda, 6-1, 6-2, and Guam\u2019s Jeremian Nelsen, 6-1, 6-0. Eda recovered with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Guam\u2019s Ryan Freeman. In Pool B, Sakano blanked Guam\u2019s Brian Tuncap, 6-0, 6-0, and FSM\u2019s David Panuelo, 6-0, 6-0.<\/p>\n
Also getting a 2-0 start in the boys U15 was Jake Lee, who downed teammate Chris Cajigan in their Pool B game, 6-3, 6-4, and Guam\u2019s Andrew Chung, 6-0, 6-1. In Pool C, Angelo Jones split his two matches, losing to Guam\u2019s David Okuhama first, 4-6, 5-7, before thumping Palau\u2019s Jacob Spis Senior, 6-1, 6-2.<\/p>\n
In the girls U12 division, defending champion Negahr Rastguiy swept her first two games. She won over FSM\u2019s Jennia Panuelo, 6-0, 6-1, and teammate Emily Jones, 6-0, 6-1. Tammy Ackerman also had a 2-0 start in Day 1 after thwarting FSM\u2019s Sunshein Palik, 6-2, 6-0, and teammate Carol Lee, 6-3, 7-6 (4).<\/p>\n
In the boys U12, the CNMI went 4-for-6. Pool A top seed Carl Dela Cruz defeated Guam\u2019s Arya Rahmani, 6-1, 6-0, and Pool B top pick Colin Ramsey downed Guam\u2019s Camden Camacho, 6-0, 6-1. In Pool C, Moris Villanueva swept Guam\u2019s Gabriel Tan, 6-2, 6-2, while Michael Ren defeated FSM\u2019s Samuel Adams in Pool D, 6-1, 6-1. Michael Jones dropped his opening match in Pool B against Guam\u2019s Edward Chung, 0-6, 2-6, while Luther Lizama also lost his debut in Pool B, bowing to top seed Derek Okuhama of Guam, 4-6, 0-6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CNMI Junior Team dominated the opening games in the 2011 North Pacific Qualifying Tournament at the Rick Ninete Tennis Center in Guam on Monday.<\/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-152735","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\/152735","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=152735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}