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National tennis coach Jeff Race said the core of the 2019 Apia, Samoa Pacific Mini Games will make up the CNMI National Tennis Team for next year\u2019s Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games.<\/p>\n
The CNMI Sports Hall of Fame inductee said 2019 Mini Games gold medalists Colin Sinclair, Robbie Schorr, and Carol Lee are guaranteed spots as well as Samoa veteran Isabel Herras.<\/p>\n
Sinclar won the men\u2019s singles gold in Apia and together with Schorr and Ken Song bagged the men\u2019s team gold. He also partnered with Lee to win the mixed doubles gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have at least six men trying out for the team. We have two spots in our men\u2019s team remaining and two spots are getting automatic spots\u2014that\u2019s Colin Sinclair and Roby Schorr. It\u2019s pretty much the same thing with the women. Carol Lee and Isabel Herras will be our automatic players on the team. They\u2019re part of the core of our team from 2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sinclair recently led Pacific Oceania to promotion to Group II of the Davis Cup in 2022 after beating Syria in the finals of Group III in Amman, Jordan.<\/p>\n
Schorr, meanwhile, was named to the AMC\/HAAC Second-Team Singles and Second-Team Doubles after going 12-2 on the season in singles play and 11-2 on the season in doubles play while suiting up for Pacific William Woods University.<\/p>\n
Lee, playing for Georgia Tech, most recently went undefeated in both the singles and doubles competition in the Debbie Southern Furman Fall Classic in Greenville, S.C. Herras suits up for Metropolitan State\u00a0University\u00a0of Denver. \u201cThe other six who will compete for the two remaining slots in the men\u2019s team are Ken Song, who was in the 2019 team, and also Tony Atalig, who lives in New York, who might come out to try out I\u2019m not sure but he\u2019s interested. Here on Saipan we have Colin Ramsey, Bobby Cruz, Luther Lizama, and Morris Villanueva,\u201d said Race.<\/p>\n
He said they will have a playoff among the four who are on island and then when the other two players\u2014Song and Atalig\u2014come from off-island they will have a final playoff to determine the last two members of the men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
Like the men\u2019s team, Race said included in the women\u2019s pool are off-island netters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have Asia Raulerson who plays at Albany University. She was a freshman last year and played No. 1 in that Division II team. She\u2019s really interested and she really wants to try out and I hope she does. Then of course we have Tania Tan and Malika Miyawaki who played in the 2019 team and are playing club tennis at their schools.\u201d <\/p>\n
On-island women\u2019s players that might get consideration are junior players Hye Jin Elliot and Serin Chung, according to Race.<\/p>\n
\u201cHye Jin and Serin will also try out for the team and we might even have a surprise in there. It\u2019s possible we may have one other player.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacific Mini Games 2022 Organizing Committee said nearly 1,900 athletes and officials from 21 island nations have so far confirmed their participation in the quadrennial sports event the CNMI is hosting next year from June 17 to 25. 2022. <\/p>\n
For tennis, 128 players are so far booked. The venue for tennis are the American Memorial Park tennis courts in Garapan and the Pacific Islands Club Saipan tennis courts in San Antonio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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