{"id":393137,"date":"2023-06-06T06:06:51","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T20:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=393137"},"modified":"2023-06-06T06:06:51","modified_gmt":"2023-06-05T20:06:51","slug":"no-pressure-for-top-seed-heading-into-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/no-pressure-for-top-seed-heading-into-tourney\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018No pressure\u2019 for top seed heading into tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Robert Cordon, Olympian badminton player from Guatemala, at the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium last Sunday. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO )<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The top seed in the twin Olympic qualifiers, 36-year-old Olympian Kevin Cordon of Guatemala, arrived on Saipan Sunday along with other badminton players from around the world.<\/p>\n

In an interview, the Olympian who made it to the semifinals in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games said he doesn\u2019t feel pressured heading into the Crowne Plaza Northern Marianas Open 2023\u00a0 which starts today at 3pm. \u201cActually, when you are serious, you will feel pressure, but sometimes you\u2019re lucky\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, he said he is excited to play in the Oceania region again in this 2024 Paris Olympic Games qualifying tournament here on Saipan, as he has played in New Zealand in 2009.<\/p>\n

Before this tournament, Cordon actually played three weeks ago in a tournament in Mexico.<\/p>\n

Cordon followed the road to this Olympic qualifier in the CNMI as the Olympic qualifiers first started last May. He said a lot of tournaments were happening around the world such as in Denmark and France in Europe. They then had to decide to play the tournament on Saipan when it came down to choosing where he would play.<\/p>\n

As for what he expects the level of competition in the tournament to be, he said it\u2019ll be a strong competition. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard. These players from Asian countries\u2014it\u2019s going to be tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, even with that, his strategy for the tournament is to play while having fun. \u201cI know I have to play well, I know that I have to win or get points for my world ranking. I know all those things. But I don\u2019t want to put pressure on [myself]. So, I\u2019ll just try to have fun with every point and in every
\nmatch.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the venue, which is at the newly renovated Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium in Oleai, Cordon said that it\u2019s really nice. \u201cIt\u2019s really nice. The problem with some of the venues [is that] sometimes the lights are too high, but here, it\u2019s really good to play. So, let\u2019s see what happens. We thought it\u2019s going to be really hot, but right now it\u2019s
\nnot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cordon is currently ranked No. 46 in the world.<\/p>\n

In a separate interview with the coach for the NMI National Badminton Team, Ezekiel Macario, he said that the tournament will be \u201cvery challenging, but we\u2019re going to be putting our best effort and hopefully make everybody proud with our performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the strength of the NMI team is their hard work. \u201cWe have a strong mentality. We don\u2019t give up and we\u2019re resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the teams that they look forward to challenging, Macario said Chinese-Taipei would be the strongest team. \u201cBut really, we\u2019re looking forward to playing with everybody and getting experience. I think that\u2019s the best part about playing against everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NMI is hosting back-to-back 2024 Paris Olympic Games qualifying tournaments\u2014the Crowne Plaza Northern Marianas Open 2023 starting today, Tuesday, June 6\u2014and the TakeCare Saipan International 2023. The former\u2019s qualifying round games will run from 3pm to 4pm, while main draw games will follow suit and take place until 9pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tomorrow\u2019s action will be from 10am to 9pm; Thursday\u2019s games are from 12pm to 9pm; and Friday is from 1pm to 9pm. Semis matches on Saturday will be from 1pm to 9pm, while finals in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles and men\u2019s, women\u2019s, and mixed doubles are slated for Sunday, June 11, from 12pm to 5pm. The same schedule will be in effect for the Saipan International 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The top seed in the twin Olympic qualifiers, 36-year-old Olympian Kevin Cordon of Guatemala, arrived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":393142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393137","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\/393137","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\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}