{"id":288414,"date":"2018-11-12T06:06:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T20:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=288414"},"modified":"2018-11-12T06:06:06","modified_gmt":"2018-11-11T20:06:06","slug":"conatsu-reaches-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/conatsu-reaches-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"Conatsu reaches milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"
Conatsu Kaga, center, poses with her fellow Pacific Oceania players after a training session at the International Tennis Federation\/Oceania Tennis Federation facility in Fiji last week. (Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI\u2019s Conatsu Kaga hit a milestone last month after making it to the ITF Juniors ranking list.<\/p>\n

Kaga joined the elite group of junior players in the world after advancing to the quarterfinals of the Vanuatu Junior International Open held from Oct. 15 to 19 in Port Vila. The 15-year-old swept Australia\u2019s Lara Charles in the Round of 16, 6-3, 6-2, to move into the quarterfinals. In the Round of 8, Kaga was pitted against New Caledonia\u2019s Ciara Cwagenbaum and bowed to the eventual champion.<\/p>\n

With her quarterfinals stint in the Grade 5 event, Kaga earned five ranking points and is at No. 2217 in the ranking list as of Nov. 5. The Commonwealth player started joining ITF Juniors Circuit events only in June last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to finally get my first ranking,\u201d said Kaga, who has been in Fiji at the ITF\/OTF regional training center for about a year after receiving a scholarship. \u201cTraining has been really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world ranking is somehow a fitting farewell for Conatsu, as she will leave the training facility early next month to rejoin her family in Japan.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family just moved back to Japan a few months ago, so sadly I\u2019m not going back to Saipan… I\u2019ll be going back to Japan on Dec. 4 and I will continue to play tennis there,\u201d said Kaga, who also joined swimming, running, and soccer competitions on Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a goal. At the moment, some see and know that I am not a great player. I know that too, but I will improve and change that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Kaga also played in the doubles event of the Vanuatu tournament, but she and the Solomon Islands\u2019 Zorika Morgan were beaten by Cwajgenbaum and Australia\u2019s Elena Micic, 6-1, 6-4.<\/p>\n

The competition in Vanuatu was the fifth one for Kaga this year and sixth overall. She played in the New Caledonia ITF Junior Open and BNP PARIBAS JUNIOR de Nouvelle-Caledonie in Noumea in June this year and the South Pacific Open Junior Championships, Oceania Open Junior Championships, and Oceania Closed Junior Championships in Fiji in July and August. Kaga\u2019s first ITF Juniors tournament was the Oceania Open Junior Championships in June last year, while her other singles win in the circuit was recorded in the New Caledonia ITF Junior against Japan\u2019s Maki Kakizawa, 0-6, 6-1, 6-4, in the first round of the Grade 5 event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI\u2019s Conatsu Kaga hit a milestone last month after making it to the ITF…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":288416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[195,23222,164,170],"class_list":["post-288414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-australia","tag-ciara-cwagenbaum","tag-fiji","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288414","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=288414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}