{"id":303441,"date":"2019-07-15T06:06:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-14T20:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=303441"},"modified":"2019-07-15T06:06:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-14T20:06:09","slug":"mens-tennis-team-delivers-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mens-tennis-team-delivers-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Men\u2019s tennis team delivers gold"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-303441 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-medium'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mens-tennis-team-delivers-gold\/pacific-games-pix-1\/'>pacific games pix 1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-303442'>\n\t\t\t\tFrom left, players Colin Sinclair, Robbie Schorr, Ken Song, and coach Jeff Race proudly pose with their medals during the awards ceremony for the XVI Pacific Games last Saturday in Samoa. 9Lydia Tan)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mens-tennis-team-delivers-gold\/pacific-games-pix-2-2\/'>pacific games pix 2<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-303443'>\n\t\t\t\tColin Sinclair makes a return from the baseline during their semis match against Tahiti in the XVI Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa last Friday. (Lydia Tan)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>[embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5iHrFzTueyU&amp;width=500&amp;height=350[\/embedyt] The CNMI anthem is played during the awards ceremony for the men&#8217;s tennis event in the XVI Pacific Games in Samoa last Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Robbie Schorr, Colin Sinclair, and Ken Song repaid the faith head coach Jeff Race gave them by ruling the men\u2019s team tennis event in the XVI Pacific Games in Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was telling people I would eat my hat if we didn\u2019t win a medal. So, at least I won\u2019t have to do that, LOL,\u201d said Race shortly after the CNMI Men\u2019s Tennis Team was guaranteed to win a silver medal following a semis victory, 2-0, over Tahiti last Friday morning at the Apia Tennis Court.<\/p>\n<p>Against Tahiti, Robbie Schorr handed the Commonwealth the first win after sweeping Ridge Chung, 6-1, 6-3. It was not the matchup that Race was expecting, as he was anticipating Tahiti\u2019s No. 1 Heve Kelley to duel Schorr.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think they thought their No. 2 would beat Robbie and they would have saved him (Kelley) for the doubles and gold medal match in the afternoon,\u201d Race said.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, the ploy backfired on Tahiti, as Schorr hammered Chung, and the CNMI did not even have to play the doubles game, as Colin Sinclair also prevailed in his singles match, beating Heimanarii Lai San, 6-2, 6-1, to move the Commonwealth to the gold medal game.<\/p>\n<p>The finals was set Friday afternoon and was stretched to early evening due to rain with the CNMI pitted against Papua New Guinea, which edged Samoa in the other semis tiff, 2-1.<\/p>\n<p>Schorr was first up in the gold medal showdown and eased past Mark Stuart Gibbons in the opening set, 6-0. While the first set was a gimme for the Commonwealth junior player, the second was a different story, as Gibbons went toe-to-toe with Schorr before the former pulled off a 7-5 triumph to move the CNMI one win away from securing the gold.<\/p>\n<p>In the second singles game, Sinclair was caught off guard by Matthew Dean Tui Stubbings, who raced to a 2-0 lead. However, the moment Sinclair got into his rhythm, not even a rain-delay prevented the world No. 53 (ITF rankings) from storming back and sealing the deal for the CNMI. Sinclair won the five games before rain halted the first set, which when resumed ended right away, as the CNMI player took a 6-2 triumph. Sinclair went on to extend his streak, dominating the second set, 6-0, and handing the Commonwealth its first medal in the XVI Pacific Games.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHopefully, a couple more are coming,\u201d said Race, whose wards returned to the court right on the next day to compete in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles and doubles, and mixed doubles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tan, Song advance<\/strong><br \/>\nIn the women\u2019s singles, Tania Tan survived the opener with a three-set victory.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/pacific-pasa-pix-300x225.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Tan lost to American Samoa\u2019s Paris Redskin in the first set, 6-7 (9), but stole the win after sweeping the last two, 6-3, 6-3, to advance to the second round where she will face No. 3 seed Steffi Carruthers of Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>Carol Lee, Malika Miyawaki, and Isabel Heras were the other CNMI entries in the women\u2019s singles and all three drew a bye in the opening round last Saturday. Miyawaki will face No. 6 Naia Guitton of Tahiti today, while No. 5 Lee and No. 13 Heras will take on Samoa\u2019s Ela Puleni Vakaukamea and Sauleone Anasis Saipele, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>In the men\u2019s singles, Song moved to the second round where he will challenge No. 13 Larry Magalasin of American Samoa after a walkover against Kiribati\u2019s Dallas Addi. Sinclair, the No. 1 seed and drew a bye in the opener, will meet Icham Tidjane, while No. 8 Schorr will square off against Samoa\u2019s Matavao Faleta Fanguna.<\/p>\n<p>In yesterday\u2019s results, Schorr teamed up with Heras in beating Kiribati\u2019s Tebatibunga Tito and Kaoa Fakaofo, 6-4, 6-1. Schorr and Heras will face American Samoa\u2019s Christian Duchnak and Kalani Soli for a quarterfinals berth in the mixed doubles. Sinclair and Lee will also go for a Round of 8 slot against the duo of Vanuatu\u2019s Desiree Signo and Noah Molbaleh after sweeping Fiji\u2019s Raynal Singh and Ruby Coffin yesterday, 6-2, 6-1.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[embedyt] https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5iHrFzTueyU&amp;width=500&amp;height=350[\/embedyt] The CNMI anthem is played during the awards ceremony for the men&#8217;s tennis&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":303444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303441","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=303441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}