Referee Pat O’Rourke writes that” players from Japan and Taiwan dominated the 2016 IT&E Northern Mariana Islands Junior championships. With the large number of overseas players the fields were strong and qualifying was required in both the boys and girls singles.
NMI star Carol Lee put up an excellent showing in the girls singles reaching the quarterfinals where she had an epic battle with fourth seed Yuelin Chen (TPE). In a topsy turvy match Chen breezed through the first set 6-0 before Carol hit back taking the second 6-0. Chen began strongly in the third set racing to a 5-2 lead before Lee began an epic fightback encouraged by the local crowd. Locked at 6 games all in the third set a tiebreaker was played to decide the winner and Chen edged past the local hope 7-5. Palau’s Ayana Rengiil also played very well in the singles to make the quarterfinals pushing top seed Rika Tanaka (JPN) very hard before going down 7-6(3) 6-0.
The finals of both boys and girls singles pitted Japanese players against players from Taiwan. In the boys final top seed Cing-Yang Meng (TPE) faced unseeded Seita Watanabe (JPN). With Meng having an ATP ranking and much more experience he was expected to dominate the match. However Watanabe, who has a great array of talent, had other ideas and a thrilling final ensued. The first set went to a tiebreak and both players had set points before Meng took it 11-9. The second set was a repeat with Meng winning the tiebreaker to take the match 7-6(9) 7-6(4).
L to R: Yuelin Chen (TPE-Runner Up), Rika Tanaka (JPN-Winner), Cing-Yang (TPE-Winner), Seita Watanabe(JPN-Runner Up)
The girls final also went to the top seed with Rika Tanaka just too strong for Yuelin Chen, who chased everything down but couldn’t put enough balls away, winning 6-3 6-4. Chen got her revenge in the girls doubles final combining with compatriot Ting-Chieh Wei to outlast Claudia Ng (HKG) and Rika Tanaka 2-6 6-3 (10-7). The deciding factor in the second set and match tiebreak was the outstanding net play of Ting-Cheih who was the best doubles player on the court.
L to R: Carol Lee (NMI-background), Ayana Rengiil (PAL-foreground)
In an all Japanese final Seita Watanabe and partner Kai Kawano took the boys doubles with a 6-1 7-5 win over Tsubasa Kato and Yusuke Miyai.
The tournament was once again played at the Pacific Islands Club courts and NMI Tennis put on an excellent event for the players with a welcome dinner and a dinner party at the Tan’s house on the Thursday night. With brilliant weather every day after the practice day everyone had a great time.”