{"id":386205,"date":"2023-02-28T06:04:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-27T20:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=386205"},"modified":"2023-02-28T06:04:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T20:04:48","slug":"carol-switches-tennis-allegiance-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/carol-switches-tennis-allegiance-to-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Carol switches tennis allegiance to US"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Lee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI will not be having Carol Lee in this year\u2019s Micronesian Games in Majuro and the Pacific Games in Honiara after arguably the best women\u2019s tennis player the islands has ever produced opted to switch her tennis allegiance from the CNMI to the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy head coach told me that I could get higher potential opportunities to get accepted into wild cards for ITF tournaments if I switched my flag to the U.S.,\u201d Lee told Saipan Tribune<\/em> about her decision to switch allegiance to the U.S.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 current No. 7 women\u2019s singles player in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association\u2019s individual rankings said that she will continue to represent the CNMI in spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my heart I\u2019m still representing CNMI and I always will but as of now, with an idea of getting more opportunities for my tennis career in the future, my flag would be the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee said she just wants to maximize her tennis opportunities and believes donning the U.S. flag is the best path for now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still can represent the CNMI and I don\u2019t have an official plan of what I would do yet after college, but I would like to try out playing pro. I can switch it back to my [original] flag if it doesn\u2019t help me with tennis potential,\u201d said the 21-year-old from Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n

CNMI national tennis coach Jeff Race laments Lee\u2019s decision to switch allegiances, saying that it will deprive the CNMI of an automatic four gold medals in both the Pacific Games and Micronesian Games (gold medal in women\u2019s singles, women\u2019s doubles, mixed doubles, and women\u2019s team).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she had played in the Games (both Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands and Micronesian Games in the Marshall Islands) personally I am quite sure we would have won every gold medal\u2026[do you think] she and Colin would lose? If she thinks she will get more wildcards then go for it. Anyway I wish her the best of luck,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Georgia Tech women\u2019s tennis coach Rodney Harmon, meanwhile, said Lee has a bright future in the sport of tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cCarol has a very high ceiling as she is very athletic, committed to being the best player she can be, and is a fierce competitor.\u00a0 Her improvement since she came to Georgia Tech has been incredible. She is extremely hardworking and is a joy to coach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI will not be having Carol Lee in this year\u2019s Micronesian Games in Majuro…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":386191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[38,320],"class_list":["post-386205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-saipan-tribune","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386205","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=386205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}