{"id":376363,"date":"2022-09-22T06:06:59","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T20:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=376363"},"modified":"2022-09-22T06:06:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T20:06:59","slug":"competition-getting-tougher-every-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/competition-getting-tougher-every-year\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Competition getting tougher every year\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
CNMI junior netters pose with other players from the region taking part in the 2022 Pacific Oceania Juniors Championship at the Regional Training Centre in Lautoka, Fiji. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With only the boys 14 doubles team of Nasson Wessel and June Yu bringing home the bacon, CNMI national tennis coach Jeff Race is far from satisfied with how his wards fared in the recently concluded 2022 Pacific Oceania Juniors Championship held in Lautoka, Fiji.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid we do as well as I\u2019d have liked? Definitely not. If we\u2019re not No. 1 I\u2019m not entirely happy,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aside from Wessel and Yu, Irin Chung also salvaged third place in the girls 14 singles in the POJC, which was canceled the past couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Race, the CNMI sports hall of famer and Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Federation president, said Commonwealth players need to level up if they stand any chance of competing against the best in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition in the Pacific is tough and getting tougher every year. Tahiti is always the main competition. With 11 tennis clubs, all with courts and coaches, they have an intense level of competition there just to be able to make it here,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Race added that the CNMI was already at a disadvantage even before leaving for Fiji with inadequate training facilities on the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe No. 1 priority of our tennis program has got to be the development of a national training center of at least four courts. Right now we don\u2019t even know if or where we\u2019ll be training next week or next month. We weren\u2019t able to train properly for the time before we came as our group training at one time was too large and vying for court time with the public at [the American Memorial Park tennis courts].\u201d<\/p>\n

It can be remembered that original plans for the long-awaited facelift of the Oleai Sports Complex was the inclusion of a national tennis training center with four tennis courts.<\/p>\n

However, when the final plans for transforming the Oleai Sports Complex into a modern state-of-the-art sports facility came out, the tennis courts were reduced to only two and in its place is a swimming pool.<\/p>\n

Despite the frustration on the lack of adequate facilities, Race said he\u2019s still thankful that 17 of the CNMI\u2019s top netters get to experience high-level tennis at the Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka. He also extended his gratitude to companies that bankrolled the CNMI\u2019s delegation to the 2022 POJC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d especially like to thank Tan Holdings for their support. We couldn\u2019t have made this trip without them having our backs. Also the Tan family and Crowne Plaza, who gave us a place to train for the past year, even though their hotel was under renovation. Thanks to all those businesses who sponsored our fundraising tournaments; Bridge Capital, White Coconut Scanning, and Tan Holdings. Also the many supporters of our Beach Clean Up event, who are too numerous to mention. For sure the Rotary Club of Saipan and IT&E. Also the sacrifices of the parents, the hard work of dedicated coaches and most of all the drive and love of the game of our junior players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Aside from Wessel, Yu, and Chung, other NMI junior netters that saw action in Fiji were boys 16-and-under\u2019s Minsoo \u201cDavid\u201d Kwon, girls 16\u2019s Serin Chung and Savita Sikkel, boys 14\u2019s La Hunn Lam, Seung Woo Choi, and Siwoo Lee, girls 14\u2019s Hoo Wang, Hannah Chae, and Anna Kwon, boys 12\u2019s Yutaka Kadokura, Ian Chae, Ryan Choi, and Jihun Park, and girls 12\u2019s Lina Tsukagoshi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With only the boys 14 doubles team of Nasson Wessel and June Yu bringing home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":376354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376363","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\/376363","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}