Young guns Kanani Ashraf and Ji Hoon Heo had a blast in the first day of competition at the ITF Pacific Oceania Junior Tennis Championships in Lautoka, Fiji, both winning the first two matches thrown at them.<\/p>\n
Coming off a solid performance in the recent Verizon Tennis Cup, Ashraf looked sharp in her tournament debut last Tuesday, beating Tanine Harris of Nauru in three sets in the girls 14-and-under division.<\/p>\n
Ashraf showed toughness in the opening set, edging Harris 6-4, before faltering in the second set 4-6. <\/p>\n
The 11-year-old Ashraf\u2014youngest player in the tourney\u2014shifted momentum back to her corner and unleashed a furious charge in the final set en route to shutting down her Nauru counterpart, 6-0.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, Ashraf breezed over Akanesi Fa of Fiji in straight sets, 6-4 and 6-2.<\/p>\n
Heo, for his part, dominated in his boy\u2019s 14-and-under division opening match against Uere Katang of Kiribati and strolled to an easy 6-4, 6-2 victory.<\/p>\n
He then followed up his performance with another straight sets victory over Theo Rex of Fiji.<\/p>\n
Heo was in control in the early goings against Rex and quickly made his presence felt with a 6-0 win. <\/p>\n
Rex, however, refused to go down easily and challenged Heo in the second set, taking him to the limit, but Heo had just enough juice in him to prevent a third set with a 7-6 (4) win.<\/p>\n
Also representing the Commonwealth, Tim Quan, who placed fifth in last year\u2019s tourney, fought off an early deficit and turned the tables on Loketi Crewe of Tonga for a three-set win in the boy\u2019s 18-and-under class.<\/p>\n
Quan and Crewe engaged in a tough showdown, matching each other in the first set until Crewe managed to seal a 7-6 (3) win. Like Heo, Quan would redeem himself in the second set as he took charge and blew past Crewe, 6-0. <\/p>\n
Another intense battle took place as both remained determined to pull ahead. Quan, however, would nail clutch shots down the stretch of the match and left victorious with a 7-5 win.<\/p>\n
Quan tried to continue his success against Chris Toli of American Samoa later in the day, but was overpowered and lost 0-6, 0-6.<\/p>\n
Also, veteran Mayuko Arriola had a tough draw and dropped both her matches. <\/p>\n
Arriola, who finished sixth in the girls\u2019 14-and-under division last year, suffered a heartbreaking loss in her opener, losing to Maeva-Leigh Iro of Cook Islands.<\/p>\n
After dropping the opening set, 3-6, Arriola bounced back and showed signs of life with a 6-3 win. Iro, however, managed to put the match away with a 6-3 clincher.<\/p>\n
Arriola was then outplayed by Rowena Konofilia of the Solomon Islands in her second contest, 1-6, 0-6. <\/p>\n
The four NMI netters left Saipan last Saturday to take part in the prestigious event. They join forces with players from Guam, Nauru, and Kiribati in representing the Northern Pacific.<\/p>\n
Other countries in the tourney include Vanuatu, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, and Tonga.<\/p>\n
The tourney concludes this Saturday, Aug. 21. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Young guns Kanani Ashraf and Ji Hoon Heo had a blast in the first day of competition at the ITF Pacific Oceania Junior Tennis Championships in Lautoka, Fiji, both winning the first two matches thrown at them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83408","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}