{"id":252625,"date":"2017-05-19T06:04:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T20:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=252625"},"modified":"2017-05-19T06:04:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T20:04:35","slug":"carol-nears-finale-morocco-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/carol-nears-finale-morocco-tourney\/","title":{"rendered":"Carol nears finale in Morocco tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_252631\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-252631\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/carolpix-300x270.jpg\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-252631\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The CNMI\u2019s Carol Lee is still in contention in her third tournament in Morocco after making it to the semifinals of the doubles event of the RUC Tennis Junior Open last Wednesday.<br \/>(Roselyn B. Monroyo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>World-ranked player Carol Lee is a step away from advancing to the finals of the doubles event in Morocco\u2019s RUC Tennis Junior Open.<\/p>\n<p>Lee, who is ranked No. 330 in the world,  and teammate Skyler Marie Grace Grishuk of the U.S. made it to the semifinals of the Grade 4 competition under the ITF Juniors Circuit after downing  Great Britain\u2019s Amarni Banks and Algeria\u2019s Lynda Benkaddour in two sets last Wednesday at the Tennis Clos de l\u2019aviation Route d\u2019El Jadida in Casablanca.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 1 seeded pair of Lee and Grishuk eked out a 7-5 win over their unranked opponents in the opening set before completing the sweep with a much easier 6-3 triumph in the second.<\/p>\n<p>The victory was sweet revenge for Lee, who fell to Banks in the opening round of the singles division. The win was also the CNMI player\u2019s second against Benkaddour, as the former topped the Algerian in their battle for the quarterfinals berth in last week\u2019s ITF\/CAT North African Circuit 2017.<\/p>\n<p>After eliminating Banks and Benkaddour, Lee and Grishuk will face No. 3 and Switzerland\u2019s Joanne Zuger and Morocco\u2019s Oumaima Aziz for the finals ticket at the top half of the draw. Zuger\u2014the sister of Sina who defeated Lee in the Round of 8 of last week\u2019s Grade 3 tournament\u2014and Aziz marched into the Final Four  after a similar straight set victory against Switzerland\u2019s Lea Magun and Australia\u2019s Tina Nadine Smith, 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n<p>The semifinal round of the RUC Tennis Junior Open will all feature the seeded players in the 16-team field, as the Final Four pairing at the bottom half of the draw will have No. 4 Astigarraga Harper of Spain and Daniella Dimitrova of Bulgaria challenging No. 2  Celestrine Avomo Ella of Gabon and Elena Gemovic of Serbia.<\/p>\n<p>Ella and Gemovic barged into the semifinal round after easing past New Zealand\u2019s Oleksadnra Kalachiva and France\u2019s Ines Bekrar, 6-0, 6-4. Harper and Dimitrova, on the other hand, beat the Russian pair of Darya Mukhina and Daria Solovyeva in the first set, 6-3, before pulling off a tough 7-6 (3) victory in the second.<\/p>\n<p>The semis games were scheduled to be played last night and results of neither match were unavailable at press time. The doubles champions of the third tournament Morocco hosted this month will receive 40 rankings points, while 30 will go to the runners-up. Lee, for making it to the semis, is already guaranteed 15 ranking points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World-ranked player Carol Lee is a step away from advancing to the finals of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":252631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1814,80,13407,815],"class_list":["post-252625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-carol-lee","tag-final-four","tag-morocco","tag-switzerland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252625","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=252625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}