{"id":234240,"date":"2016-08-15T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=234240"},"modified":"2016-08-15T06:00:05","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T20:00:05","slug":"cnmi-junior-players-begin-bid-pojc-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cnmi-junior-players-begin-bid-pojc-today\/","title":{"rendered":"CNMI junior players begin bid in POJC today"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_234248\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-234248\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/pojcpix-1-300x186.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-234248\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CNMI junior tennis team players and coach Jeff Race pose for a photo at the departure area of the Saipan International Airport last week before leaving for Fiji to compete in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Six of the 16 CNMI players in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships are seeded in their respective divisions as action in the annual tournament kicks off today.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Lee is ranked first in the girls U16 singles and is in Group 1 of the round-robin elimination, joining the fourth-seeded Ruby Coffin of Fiji, Sunshein Palik of the Federates States of Micronesia, Daisy Spiti of Vanuatu, and Maanaima Tausi of Samoa. Lee\u2019s fellow CNMI bets\u2014Tania Tan and Isabel Heras\u2014are in Group B along with the second-ranked Vienna Kumar of Fiji,  No. 3 Naia Guitton of Tahiti, and  Tonga\u2019s Skylawn Palelei. Heras will face Pelelei in today\u2019s first round, while Tan will also duel the Tonga bet along with Guitton on Day 1 of the POJC. Lee is paired against Coffin.<\/p>\n<p>In the girls U14 singles, the third-ranked Malika Miyawaki is pitted against CNMI teammate Asia Raulerson in the first round match in Group 2. In Group 1,  the Commonwealth\u2019s Conatsu Kaga and Maria Gregoire will challenge American Samoa\u2019s Chrystal Christman and top-ranked Eleanor Schuster of Samoa, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Only the Top 2 players in each group after the round-robin play in the girls U14 and U16 singles will advance to the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>The boys U14 singles has the same format with the CNMI\u2019s Robbie Schorr and Ken Song getting the Top 2 seeding in the division. The No. 1 rank Schorr will take on No. 4 pick Samuel Strid on Day 1 of the series of Group 1 matches. Sean Lee is also in Group 1 and will meet Strid, too, and American Samoa\u2019s John Paul Lim in the opening day. In Group 2, the second-seeded Song will collide against No. 3 Vaitea Molinier of Tahiti and Fiji\u2019s Shantanu Shail.<\/p>\n<p>In the boys U12 singles, the CNMI also has two seeded players in No. 3 Ji Min Woo and No. 4 Seung Jin Paik. Woo is in Group 4 and will have back-to-back games today, facing  Samoa\u2019s Rafael Tapusoa first before battling Fiji\u2019s Storm Cornish. Paik has twin matches, too on Day 1, as he takes on Tahiti\u2019s Haunui Montas and Samoa\u2019s Corey Duseigneur in Group 3.<\/p>\n<p>The boys U16 singles is also divided into four pools with Vincent Tudela in Group 2 and Michael Ren in Group 3. Tudela\u2019s first foe is Vanuatu\u2019s Clement Mainguy, while Ren will start his bid in his group against Tahiti and No. 3 seed Heimanarii Laisan.<\/p>\n<p>The 15 CNMI players competing in the POCJ are representing the North Pacific Team, which is coached by the Commonwealth\u2019s Jeff Race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Six of the 16 CNMI players in the 2016 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships are seeded&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":234248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[167,26,164,2020],"class_list":["post-234240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-american-samoa","tag-cnmi","tag-fiji","tag-jeff-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234240","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=234240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}