{"id":218466,"date":"2016-01-12T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T20:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=218466"},"modified":"2016-01-12T06:00:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T20:00:55","slug":"beling-to-relocate-to-hawaii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/beling-to-relocate-to-hawaii\/","title":{"rendered":"Beling to relocate to Hawaii"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Luke Beling makes a backhand return during a photo shoot for TAGA Sports in 2014 at the Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan courts. (Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CNMI tennis is losing a contributor to the sport with the transfer of Luke Beling to Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Beling, who arrived on Saipan in 2013 to teach at Whispering Palms and eventually became the tennis pro at Fiesta Resort & Spa Saipan, has accepted the \u201cDirector of Tennis\u201d post at Kukio Beach Club in Hawaii. He and his family will leave Saipan at the end of this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve thoroughly enjoyed working with the players of Saipan and I am very sad to leave the kids and the community. I\u2019ve loved seeing the energy and enthusiasm of the players here. This has impressed me most,\u201d said Beling, who will be replaced by Peter Loken as coach and owner of Saipan Tennis Academy.<\/p>\n

During his nearly three-year stay on Saipan, Beling worked with upcoming players and also honed the skills of some of the CNMI\u2019s junior players who represented the Commonwealth to different off-island competitions.<\/p>\n

His advice to his students and the rest of the CNMI\u2019s junior players is to continue playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay matches and then more matches. Don\u2019t worry about who you are playing against or what the score is. Respect and enjoy the journey and the process of becoming a tennis player,\u201d the former Campbellsville University standout said.<\/p>\n

Beling, who was once ranked in the Top 15 in South Africa junior tennis, also wishes that the island\u2019s youth players aspire to play higher level tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that all those who pursue tennis set and chase goals that seem impossible to reach. Dream and pursue being a pro or playing college if that\u2019s in your heart. Work hard, don\u2019t waste a minute by being lazy. Take advantage of the opportunity to play and compete and have no regrets,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

When Beling leaves, he will bring with him a collection of awards he won from the various tournaments on the island. He debuted on Saipan via the 2013 Tan Holdings Tennis Classic where he notched three division championships\u2014the men\u2019s open singles, men\u2019s open doubles (with fellow coach Jeff Race) and mixed open doubles (with former CNMI junior player Thea Minor). He successfully defended the men\u2019s open singles title in the same tournament for two years (2014 and 2015) and also kept the men\u2019s open doubles championship (with Loken in 2014 and Martin Jambor in 2015).<\/p>\n

In the PIC Tennis Championships, he topped the men\u2019s open singles divisions in 2014 and 2015 and also ruled the mixed open doubles category with Mikayla Lopez in the same years.<\/p>\n

Beling played in the Coconut Tennis Classic, too and prevailed in the mixed-up doubles with junior player Joshua Abragan in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy most memorable tournaments were the Coconut Classics. The tournaments posed a unique and interesting challenge and allowed me to lead a junior in a real game situation as opposed to an after\/pre match or practice situation,\u201d Beling said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Race thanked Beling for helping develop young players.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave us a lot of help in teaching young players how to improve their games. I wish he could stay, but he received a great offer and he has to take it. I wish him good luck,\u201d the CNMI coach said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNMI tennis is losing a contributor to the sport with the transfer of Luke Beling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":218472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,8570,9101,3905],"class_list":["post-218466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-martin-jambor","tag-peter-loken","tag-whispering-palms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218466","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=218466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}