The Referee for the 2016 South Pacific Open Junior Championships (SPOJC). Pat O’ Rourke, writes that “the 16th SPOJC was held at the Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka in late June. Record numbers of players from Oceania and Asian Nations attended along with a few from USA. The boy’s qualifying event was full and there was a girl’s qualifying for the first time. With a series of long matches during the tournament these numbers put a lot of pressure on the schedule meaning the very good floodlights were used on a number of evenings.
The tournament was lucky to have very well ranked players as the top seeds in both the boy’s and girl’s events. As it turned out these players were too good for their lesser ranked opponents but the standard of tennis they turned on was much appreciated. Top Seed Kaitlin Staines from Australia won the girl’s singles beating 3rd seed Sara Tsukamoto from USA in a competitive match 6-4 6-4.
Staines combined with Claudia Ng from Hong Kong to win the girl’s doubles against Maxine G (SIN)/Wing Sze Yu(HKG)comprehensively 6-3, 6-1.
Yu Hsiou Hsu from Chinese Taipei was the top seed in the boy’s singles with a world junior ranking of 151 and an ATP ranking of 1844. He played excellent tennis right through to the final where he came up against Australia Dimitri Morogiannis who had suffered a back injury in winning his semi-final match. In the final the Australian tried valiantly for a set before being forced to retire and hand the title to Hsu at 6-0,3-0 Retired.
In the doubles Hsu combined with Arthur Chau from Hong Kong to take the title over Ali Mooraj (PAK) and Dylan Heap (NZL) 6-2 7-6.
The biggest ever number of players from the Pacific took part in the tournament. This was due largely to the ITF development project to bringing promising players from Pacific countries together in Lautoka for two months to train and play the various events available. Carol Lee (NMI) did best, reaching the girl’s quarterfinals while Mulan Kamoe (FIJ) reached the round of 16 and Vida Teally (SOL) and Ruby Coffin (FIJ) also had wins in the girl’s singles. Reynald Taaroa (PYF) had his first singles win on the ITF Junior circuit beating Larry Magalasin (ASA) to reach the round of 32.”
Full results can be accessed here http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament.aspx?id=682B7692-3CBB-4ABC-8E2A-D49896FA8317