{"id":202622,"date":"2015-05-26T04:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T18:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=202622"},"modified":"2015-05-26T04:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T18:00:19","slug":"japanese-sweep-in-doubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/japanese-sweep-in-doubles\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese sweep in doubles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan\u2019s Tomohiro Masabayashi and Kento Yamada survived an extended finale to take the doubles championship in the 2015 IT&E Northern Marianas Junior Championships last Saturday at the Pacific Islands Club tennis courts.<\/p>\n

The Japanese pair as pitted against the Singapore duo of Shaheed Alam and Sherwin Foo and prevailed in the super tiebreaker, 10-8, to rule the 16-team main draw. Masabayashi and Yamada, who were seeded fourth in the doubles contest, cruised past the second-ranked Foo and Alam in the opening set, 6-3, but failed to close out the finals early when the Singaporean pair came back in the second set with an impressive 6-1 victory to send the match to the super tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

\"Japan\u2019s<\/a>
Japan\u2019s Tomohiro Masabayashi, left, goes up for a smash, while teammate Kento Yamada looks on during their doubles title match against Singapore\u2019s Shaheed Alam and Sherwin Foo last Saturday in the 2015 IT&E Northern Marianas Junior Championships at the Pacific Islands Club tennis courts. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The finals was Alam and Foo\u2019s third consecutive match that went the distance. In the semifinals in the lower half of the draw, they topped Rimpei Kawakami and Kazuki Shimizu, 2-6, 6-4 (10-6), to foil an all-Japanese title match. Earlier in the quarterfinals, the Singapore bets also pulled off a 1-6, 6-1 (10-6) triumph against Japan\u2019s Shinsji Hazawa and James Trotter.<\/p>\n

Masabayashi and Yamada came from a super tiebreaker victory, too in the semifinals, stunning the top-ranked pair of Jesse Delaney of Australia and China\u2019s Ching Lam, 2-6, 6-4 (10-6).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the unranked duo of Sakura Hondo and Ayano Shimizu won the all-Japan finals in the girls division. They swept compatriots and fellow unseeded players Funa Kozaki and Yuki Naito, 6-4, 6-4.<\/p>\n

The eventual champions took the finals berth at the top half of the draw without a sweat, as they won via walkover against Hong Kong\u2019s Kwan Wun Man and Japan\u2019s Makoto Ohara.<\/p>\n

Naito and Kozaki, on the other hand, eliminated the second-ranked team of Nagomi Higashitani and Ayumi Hirata, 7-5, 6-3, at the lower half of the draw to march into the finals. Naito and Kozaki challenged Hondo and Shimizu in the finals just a few hours after the doubles teammates collided in the girls singles semifinals last Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Japan\u2019s Tomohiro Masabayashi and Kento Yamada survived an extended finale to take the doubles championship…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":202630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[170,4825,745,4826],"class_list":["post-202622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-japan","tag-kento-yamada","tag-singapore","tag-tomohiro-masabayashi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202622","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}