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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, May 2, 2009

International junior tournament set for CORP

Advertiser Staff

Ten Hawai'i tennis players are competing in the Hawai'i International Tennis Federation Junior Tournament, beginning Monday at the Patsy T. Mink CORP Tennis Complex. Finals are next Saturday.

The second stop on the USTA ITF Spring Circuit is being run the same time as the Carlsmith Ball State High School Tennis Championships at CORP. Those begin Wednesday and also end Saturday.

This is the second year the ITF, which offers the game's most intense competition for juniors, will play here. There are more than 300 ITF events annually, in more than 100 countries.

Last year, 2007 state runner-up Matt Westmoreland and 2008 state champion Fernando Aguirregomezcorta advanced to the second round, then lost to seeded players in three sets.

Westmoreland is back and will be joined by Hawai'i's James Lee, Shane Young, Carter Lam, Marcel Chan and Alec Wagner in the boys draw. The girls draw includes Demetria Woods, Tara Watumull, Scout Shutter and Julia Weisel.

Players from 15 countries have entered. Tentative top seeds are Australia's Robert Howe in the boys (No. 373 ITF world ranking) and Canada's Juliana Gajic (255) in the girls.

Admission is free. Matches begin at 9 a.m. each day.

NCAA II REGIONALS

Hawai'i Pacific, ranked fifth nationally, and 26th-ranked Brigham Young-Hawai'i will host the men's NCAA Division II West Regionals Thursday.

The Sea Warriors play UC San Diego at 11:30 a.m. at Kailua Racquet Club while the Seasiders (15-4) take on 27th-ranked University of Hawai'i-Hilo (8-7) at 2 p.m. Both winners advance to the NCAA National Tournament in Altamonte Springs, Fla., May 13 to 16.

BYUH and Hilo split four matches during the season.

HPU (13-4) is the West Region's top-ranked team and UCSD fourth. The Sea Warriors defeated the Tritons 7-2 earlier this season. HPU senior Hendrik Bode is the region's top-ranked singles player.

On the women's side, top-ranked Brigham Young-Hawai'i will host a first-round match against Cal State Stanislaus (10-3) this week. The Seasiders are 25-0, and beat Hawai'i Pacific in the PacWest Tournament final.

The Sea Warriors (15-7) travel to California to take on UC San Diego (15-5) next Saturday, at 8 a.m. HST. The Tritons beat HPU, 5-4, earlier this season.

The winners of both matches advance to nationals in Florida.

In the latest regional rankings, BYUH is No. 1 in the West, followed by UCSD, Hawai'i Pacific and Stanislaus. Hawai'i-Hilo finished its season fifth and Chaminade ninth.

MORE TENNIS ONLINE

The United States Professional Tennis Association has launched two Web sites.

The first, tennis-health .com, is focused on health and supports the "Tennis — For the Health of It" initiative. The free, interactive site is for teaching professionals, tennis consumers, health care professionals and non-tennis playing consumers. Its goal is to communicate the health benefits of tennis for people of all age, skill and fitness levels.

The second is tennis resources.com, a subscription-based search engine that allows users to find subjects ranging from educational and instructional videos to articles and drill diagrams. The Web site targets tennis-teaching professionals and coaches and tennis players of all levels.