{"id":403933,"date":"2024-01-19T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=403933"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Simon-Nason-bag-U18-U16-titles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Simon-Nason-bag-U18-U16-titles\/","title":{"rendered":"Simon, Nason bag U18, U16 titles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Tang and Nason Wessel reigned supreme in the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament that was held from last Friday to Monday at the American Memorial Park tennis courts.<\/p>\n

Since there were only four players in the boys U18 division, No. 2 seed Tang claimed the title after going undefeated in the tourney when he won all his matches. He played against No. 1 seed Cody Shimizu, Wessel, and Siwoo Lee.<\/p>\n

In Tang\u2019s last match, he defeated Lee, 6-1, 6-4. Tang\u2019s first match was a tough one against Wessel, and won by the skin of his teeth, 7-6, 3-6, 11-9. In a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown against Shimizu, Tang had the upper hand and overpowered him, 6-4, 6-2.<\/p>\n

With his undefeated tourney, Tang said, \u201cI feel pretty great!\u201d Joining two divisions, the U16 and U18, Tang said competition in both is \u201cvery similar with not a wide range of variety on Saipan. Even with little variety, the tennis players here are still very skilled and competitive tennis players.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the hardest matches he played was against Wessel, who competed in the 2023 Pacific Games. Tang said, it\u2019s \u201cdefinitely high-quality matches whenever I play him. I believe that our matches were especially hard because both of us have been constantly training together which developed our skills drastically.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 16-year-old junior at Saipan Southern High School has been practicing multiple hours\u2014at least five days a week to get into shape. He said he looks forward to international competitions, but said, \u201cI know that it will take a lot hard work to get to where I want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the boys U16 division, Wessel won against Tang, 6-0, 6-2, in the finals to claim the championship.<\/p>\n

Wessel faced Pacific Games doubles partner, June Yu, in the semis and blanked him, 6-0, 6-0.<\/p>\n

The U14 boys winner was No. 1 seed Ian Chae, as he went undefeated in the four-player round-robin format. Chae first defeated No. 2 Matthew Hwang, 6-2, 7-5; then shut down Jihun Park, 6-2, 6-0; and capped it off with an easy win against Colten Wallace, 6-0, 6-0.<\/p>\n

Results of the U14\/U16\/U12 girls divisions will be posted in the next issues of Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n

The U12 boys finals is rescheduled to Saturday, Jan. 20, and the girls U18 finals was rained out and is rescheduled to this Sunday, Jan. 21 at 2pm.<\/p>\n

For more information on the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament, call (670) 788-7400 or (670) 989-0080.<\/p>\n

The Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association is coordinating the tourney.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Simon Tang serves during the U16 championship in the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament against Nason Wessel at the American Memorial Park tennis courts last Monday.<\/p>\n

-LEIGH GASES
<\/figcaption><\/figure>

<\/p>\n

Nason Wessel goes for a return during the U16 championship against Simon Tang in the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament last Monday at the American Memorial Park Tennis Courts.<\/p>\n

-LEIGH GASES
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simon Tang and Nason Wessel reigned supreme in the 2024 SIS Student Council Tennis Tournament…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403933","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=403933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}