{"id":228083,"date":"2016-05-19T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=228083"},"modified":"2016-05-19T06:00:58","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:00:58","slug":"japanese-pair-stuns-seeded-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/japanese-pair-stuns-seeded-foes\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese pair stuns seeded foes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Japan\u2019s Tsubasa Kato makes a forehand slice while teammate Yusuke Miyai looks on during their doubles game against the Philippines\u2019 Jerome Romualdez and Hong Kong\u2019s Alester Magalit in the 2016 IT&E Northern Marianas Juniors Championships yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club hard courts.
(Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Upset marked the start of the boys doubles contest in the 2016 IT&E Northern Marianas Juniors Championships as a Japanese pair pulled the rug from under their seeded opponents.<\/p>\n

Unranked Yusuke Miyai and Tsubasa Kato swept the second-seeded duo of Hong Kong\u2019s Alester Magalit and the Philippines\u2019 Jerome Romualdez, 6-4, 6-0, yesterday at the Pacific Islands Club to advance to the quarterfinal round of the lower half of the bracket.<\/p>\n

Romualdez and Magalit were the only ranked players who failed to survive the opening round of the doubles events as No. 1 seed Ryuki Matsuda of Japan and Yohan Sung of Korea, No. 4 Kai Kawano and Seita Watanabe of Japan, and No. 3 Ting-Hao Hsu and Cheng-Chief Wang of Chinese-Taipei eliminated their respective foes.<\/p>\n

Sung and Matsuda needed only two sets to dispatch Japan\u2019s Taiyo Hirano and Fumiya Yoshino, 6-0, 6-4, and arrange a quarterfinals duel against Chinese-Taipei\u2019s Cing-Yang Meng and Hong Kong\u2019s Kyle Tang at the upper half of the bracket. Meng and Tang eked out a 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 victory over Japan\u2019s Tatsumi Shimamoto and Malaysia\u2019s Darrshan Suresh.<\/p>\n

Kawano and Watabe are also at the top half of the draw and set up a quarterfinals date against the Philippines Michael Eala and Japan\u2019s Kairi Inoue following a 6-2, 6-2 triumph over the Philippines\u2019 Manuel Balce III and South Korea\u2019s Min Seok Kim. Eala and Inoue took only two sets too to down wild card entries Benjaminjacob Martin of the Philippines and the CNMI\u2019s Vincent Tudela, 6-2, 6-1.<\/p>\n

At the bottom half of the draw, Hsu and Wang eased past Japan\u2019s Ryuhei Azuma and Taiyo Yamanaka, 6-3, 6-1, to forge a Round of 8 tiff against American Samoa\u2019s Larry Magalasin and the Federate States of Micronesia\u2019s Terry Rush, who eliminated the CNMI\u2019s Robbie Schorr and Australia\u2019s Charles Dossetter, 6-2, 6-2.<\/p>\n

The other quarterfinal pairing at the bottom half of the draw will have the tandem of Japan\u2019s Soma Yokoyama and Hong Kong\u2019s Jonathan Zhang Kato and Miyai. Yokoyama and Zhang advanced following a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Japan\u2019s Roma Matsushita and Hong Kong\u2019s Matthew Lee.<\/p>\n

In other results yesterday, Japanese Tatsuki Shimamoto, Taiyo Hirano, Yamanaka, Watanabe, Matsushita, and Miyai won their respective opening singles matches to march into the second round. Balce broke Japan\u2019s streak in yesterday\u2019s boys singles competition after ousting Azuma, 6-3, 6-2.<\/p>\n

Lee, Rengiil soldier on<\/strong>
\nIn the girls doubles, all four seeded teams made it to the quarterfinal round.<\/p>\n

The CNMI\u2019s very own Carol Lee and Palau\u2019s Ayana Rengiil, who are seeded third in the field, booked a quarterfinals berth after knocking out the Japan\u2019s Nanari Katsumi and the Commonwealth\u2019s Negahr Rastguiy, 6-1, 6-1. Lee and Rengiil will go for a semis slot when they take on Japan\u2019s Yuna Fukumuro and Haruka Hoshino at the upper half of the bracket. The Japanese pair won over compatriot Saki Oyma and Chinese-Taipei\u2019s Ling Hsuan We, 6-3, 3-6, 10-8.<\/p>\n

Another Japanese duo\u2014Akari Miyazaki and Nanami Okamoto\u2014barged into the quarterfinals following a 6-4, 6-3 victory over the CNMI\u2019s Tania Tan and Mua Shigeta. Okamoto and Miyazaki will next challenge the top-ranked pair of Rika Tanaka and Claudia Ng, who swept the CNMI\u2019s Isabel Heras and Japan\u2019s Sophie Hamada, 6-2, 6-2, in another match at the upper half of the draw.<\/p>\n

At the bottom half, No. 2 seed Yuelin Chen and Ting-Chieh Wei of Chinese-Taipei blanked the CNMI\u2019s Mimi Sakano and Ami Tsukagoshi, 6-0, 6-0, to advance against Japan\u2019s Mana Kawamura and Tomoko Yoshida, who prevailed against the U.S\u2019 Sara Tsukamoto and Casey Cummings, 6-3, 7-5.<\/p>\n

The other pairing at the lower half of the draw will have Hong Kong\u2019s Avril Look and Hong Yi Wong dueling compatriot Alicie Yue and Chinese-Taipei\u2019s Ya Chi Hsu. The fourth-ranked Hong Kong duo topped Japan\u2019s Manami and Yuna Ukita, 6-4, 6-2, while Hsu and Yue downed the CNMI\u2019s Malika Miyawaki and Japan\u2019s Yuki Sakurai, 6-3, 6-2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upset marked the start of the boys doubles contest in the 2016 IT&E Northern Marianas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":228121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,338,11582,159],"class_list":["post-228083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi","tag-hong-kong","tag-japanese-tatsuki-shimamoto","tag-pacific-islands-club"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228083","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=228083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}