{"id":371881,"date":"2022-07-06T06:04:47","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T20:04:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=371881"},"modified":"2022-07-06T06:04:47","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T20:04:47","slug":"davis-cup-teammates-turned-rivals-in-mini-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/davis-cup-teammates-turned-rivals-in-mini-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Davis Cup teammates turned rivals in Mini Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Teammates instantly became rivals as Davis Cuppers represented their respective island nations in the recent Northern Marianas Pacific Mini Games 2022.<\/p>\n

While they treat each other as brothers, Pacific Oceania\u2019s Davis Cup players were essentially every man for himself in the tennis competition that was held at the American Memorial Park and Pacific Islands Club Saipan tennis courts from June 16 to 24.<\/p>\n

All four\u2014the CNMI\u2019s Colin Sinclair, Papua New Guinea\u2019s Matthew Stubbings, Vanuatu\u2019s Clement Mainguy, and Cook Islands\u2019 Brett Baudinet\u2014played in the 11th staging of the Games in the CNMI with homegrown tennis hero and No. 1 seed Sinclair eventually winning the gold medal in the men\u2019s\u00a0 singles, men\u2019s doubles, and men\u2019s team event.<\/p>\n

Before the start of\u00a0 the tennis competition, Baudinet said he\u2019s excited to challenge the region\u2019s best on the court in the Mini Games only months removed after they suited up together against Estonia in Group II of Davis Cup competition in Tallinn, Estonia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited to meet and play with my teammates in the Davis Cup. They\u2019re all here and we\u2019re excited to get out there and play against our teammates. I\u2019m excited I heard there\u2019s a strong turnout this year. Always coming into these Games we\u2019re hoping for a strong draw. It makes it more exciting and it makes it more challenging and therefore more fun,\u201d the longest tenured Davis Cup player in the world said.<\/p>\n

For Mainguy, he thought it\u2019s pretty cool to see his Davis Cup teammates on the other side of the net for a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe trained a lot together and the Mini Games is probably the only moment we can compete against each other. It\u2019s the Games and it\u2019s different in practice so this time it\u2019s going to be fun. I think all of us try to want to beat each other and I know for a fact that me and Matthew can\u2019t wait to come and get Colin, he\u2019s No. 1 here. We\u2019re very motivated to try and get Colin from the top spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stubbings, the No. 2 seed in the men\u2019s singles, said it\u2019s always fun to play against his Davis Cup teammates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent a fair amount of time at the start of the year in Estonia. We\u2019re a good tight knit team. But when you\u2019re here for your country it\u2019s a whole kind of feeling. You put on your country\u2019s colors and you\u2019re obviously proud of representing your country.\u00a0 You\u2019re mates off court but when you get into the court in your countries\u2019 colors it\u2019s all war, it\u2019s a little bit of fun competition,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sinclair, for his part, said he\u2019ll just be taking it one game at a time as he figures to be in medal contention in all four divisions of the tennis competition in the Games\u2014men\u2019s team, men\u2019s doubles, mixed doubles, and singles.<\/p>\n

That strategy obviously worked as Sinclar won the aforementioned three gold medals in the Mini Games. He struck first in Day 3 of the tennis competition last June 18 when he teamed up with Robbie Schorr, Colin Ramsay, and Bobby Cruz to win the team event.<\/p>\n

He then cemented his dominance by winning back-to-back finals on the last day of the tennis competition last June 24.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sinclair first repulsed Stubbings in the men\u2019s singles finals, 6-0, 6-1.<\/p>\n

A few hours later, the ITF Tour veteran teamed up with Schorr to win the men\u2019s doubles against Clement and Aymeric Mara, 7-5, 7-5. Sinclair then won a bronze after playing with Isabel Herras in the mixed doubles to cap his Mini Games campaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teammates instantly became rivals as Davis Cuppers represented their respective island nations in the recent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":371877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23671,17845],"class_list":["post-371881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-davis-cup","tag-mini-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371881","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\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}