{"id":392823,"date":"2023-05-31T06:04:08","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T20:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=392823"},"modified":"2023-05-31T06:04:08","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T20:04:08","slug":"lam-gets-wildcard-entry-to-pojc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/lam-gets-wildcard-entry-to-pojc\/","title":{"rendered":"Lam gets wildcard entry to POJC"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Lam<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The CNMI\u2019s La Hunn Lam has gotten a wildcard entry to the 2023 Pacific Oceania Junior Championships set for later this year in Lautoka, Fiji.
\nThe 13-year-old made the cut after his performance in the U18 Guam World Tennis Tour.<\/p>\n

Lam won his second round assignment against fellow CNMI netter Simon Tang, 6-1, 6-2, before succumbing to Japanese netter Riku Oshima by the same score in the third round of the qualifiers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so grateful to get a wild card entry. I do appreciate coach Jeff [Race], the Oceania Tennis Federation, NMI friends, and family for all the support. I am very excited to play against good players in the POJC. I can\u2019t wait to play,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune<\/em> in a social media message.<\/p>\n

Lam\u2019s mother, Joo Lee, said his son also had good words to say following his victory over Tang.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always nice to play against a good player like Simon, who is my friend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for joining the U18 Guam World Tennis Tour, which first week was canceled due to Typhoon Mawar, Lam said it was a good experience especially since it served as his debut in an International Tennis Federation event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy that I was able to join the ITF junior tournament. It\u2019s my first ITF tournament and it was a great experience for me. I have learned a lot. I have improved on my game tactics even though I lost, I had so many game points but I lost most of them. I need to work on the important points,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Next up for Lam is suiting up in the doubles phase of the tournament where he is paired with former CNMI netter Anthony Gregoire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After Guam, he is expected to return to Saipan and train with Race at his Ace Tennis Academy.<\/p>\n

Race said despite the defeat, Lam was still impressive considering the Japanese netter he lost to was much older than him.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Hunn drew Simon for singles yesterday (Sunday) and won. Today (Monday) he played a Japanese 16-year-old and lost in the last round of qualifying but played really well. He has made some terrific progress tactically and mentally since we\u2019ve been here. He will play doubles Wednesday with Anthony Gregoire, who used to live on Saipan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Race added that he expects Lam to be the second seed in the 12-and-under age group in the POJC.<\/p>\n

As for the conditions in Guam following Mawar, Race and Lee said it\u2019s been a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill no water. We got water from the pool last night to shower and Simon washed some clothes,\u201d said Race.
\n\u201cWe still don\u2019t have water. It\u2019s good we have power at least. People are lining up at least three hours to get gasoline,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CNMI\u2019s La Hunn Lam has gotten a wildcard entry to the 2023 Pacific Oceania…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":392782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1140,38],"class_list":["post-392823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-pojc","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392823","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=392823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}