{"id":269883,"date":"2018-02-12T06:06:08","date_gmt":"2018-02-11T20:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=269883"},"modified":"2018-02-12T06:06:08","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T20:06:08","slug":"carol-company-promoted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/carol-company-promoted\/","title":{"rendered":"Carol and company promoted"},"content":{"rendered":"
From left, Pacific Oceania captain Gilles de Gouy of Tahiti and players Abigail Tere-Apisah of Papua New Guinea , Steffi Carruthers of Samoa, and Carol Lee of the CNMI proudly show the medals they got for being promoted to Group I of the Fed Cup Asia\/Oceania Zone after making it to the finals of the Group II competition last Saturday in Bahrain. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI\u2019s Carol Lee and her two Pacific Oceania teammates moved up to the elite Group I after winning the promotional tie in the 2018 Fed Cup Asia\/Oceania Zone Group II last Saturday in Bahrain. Lee, Samoa\u2019s Steffi Carruthers and Papua New Guinea\u2019s Abigail Tere-Apisah faced Singapore in the promotional round and pulled off a 2-1 triumph in their game last weekend at the Bahrain Tennis Federation hard courts in Isa Town.<\/p>\n

It was a come-from-behind win for No. 61 Pacific Oceania, as the higher-ranked Singapore (No. 58) prevailed in the first singles match. Charmaine Shi Yi Seah gave Singapore a 1-0 lead after outclassing Carruthers, 6-4, 6-4. Then in the second singles match, Pacific Oceania kept its hopes alive as Tere-Apisah eked out a 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Stefanie Tan.<\/p>\n

Less than an hour after tying the semis, Tere-Apisah returned to the court with Carruthers and completed Pacific Oceania\u2019s recovery with an impressive 6-1, 6-1 win over Seah and Tan.<\/p>\n

With the close win, Pacific Oceania earned one of the two promotional slots in Group I. Uzbekistan took the second berth as it eased past No. 4 seed and No. 56 Indonesia in the other pairing, 3-0. Pacific Oceania and Uzbekistan will be joining powerhouse South Korea, Thailand, Kazakhstan, China, Hong Kong, and either Japan or Thailand in the Group I competition next year. Japan and Thailand made it to the finals of the Group I contest being held in India and the winner will be promoted to the World Group II playoffs, while the loser will remain in the Asia\/Oceania Zone.<\/p>\n

Pacific Oceania moved a step away from advancing to Group I of the 2018 Fed Cup Asia\/Oceania Zone after sweeping the elimination round (Pool C). Carol and company capped their perfect record (9-0) in Pool play with a victory over No. 3 seed and world No. 55 Malaysia last Friday. Carruthers and Tere-Apisah posted contrasting wins in the singles matches with the former pulling off a 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-5) triumph over Theiviya Selvarajoo and the latter coasting past Suhana Sofia, 6-2, 6-0, to seal the deal for Pacific Oceania. In the doubles, Carruthers and Tere-Apisah also needed only two wins to beat Jawairish Noordin and Sofia, 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n

Besides downing Malaysia, the Gilles de Gouy-captained Pacific Oceania also shut down Iran and Oman in Pool C with Lee playing in two singles matches and winning both by nearly blanking her two opponents. The CNMI player gave up only a point in her sweep against Kimiya Asbaghipour and then showed no mercy to Oman\u2019s Maryam Al Balushi, 6-0, 6-0, in her second singles assignment.<\/p>\n

With Lee and her two teammates topping Pool C and making it all the way to the promotional round, Pacific Oceania will be playing in Group I for the third time. The squad, which first played in the Fed Cup, was promoted to Group I in 1999 and returned to the select group in 2001. Last year in Tajikistan, Carol, Carruthers, Tere-Apisah, and New Caledonia\u2019s Mayka Zima defeated Singapore, 3-0, to keep their spot in Group II.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI\u2019s Carol Lee and her two Pacific Oceania teammates moved up to the elite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":269886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20027,20061,745,269],"class_list":["post-269883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-bahrain-tennis-federation","tag-gouy-captained-pacific-oceania","tag-singapore","tag-thailand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269883","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=269883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}