Improvement for tennis players

The Pacific Oceania Junior Championship (POJC) tennis qualifier ended yesterday in Fiji with two of the five Cook Islands junior tennis representatives receiving an invitation to compete in the Oceania Closed Junior Championship (OCJC) tournament which commences on Monday in Fiji.

Lillian Maui, the golden girl of Cook Islands tennis, competed in the under-18 division this week along with Tamarua Payne and the pair were ecstatic to be offered the opportunity to compete in the OCJC – a tournament that pitches the best of the Pacific against the top juniors from Australia and New Zealand and serves as an important stepping stone for junior tennis throughout the Pacific.

This is Maui’s first time competing in the OCJC as she approaches the end of her junior tennis campaign.

Now that she has turned 18 she will need to compete in the senior categories in future.

Overall, while the Cook Islands team of Maui, Payne, Roland Neururer, Jake Bergman and Elijah Amataiti got off to a slow start, some promising results were posted towards the end of the week, and areas for future improvement were identified by the players and their coach for their second week of tennis in the Oceania Plate competition next week. At the Pacific Oceania Junior Champs Lillian Maui finished 7th in the under-18 girls’ grade, which was won by Marcia Tere-Apisah of Papua New Guinea while in the under-18 boys’ grade Tamarua Payne placed 7th and Roland Neururer came 9th in the category, which was won by Gregory Jacobe from Vanuatu. Jake Bergman was 10th in the under-15 boys’ category while Elijah Amataiti was 8th in the under-12 boys’ category.

This was Amataiti’s debut tournament and coach Malcolm Kajer was pleasantly surprised with the wins Amataiti posted during the tournament given that he has two more years left in the under-12 ranks.

Overall, the team is in good spirits and if history is anything to go by, better results should be seen in week two.

The players, accompanied by national coach Malcolm Kajer and team manager and Tennis Cook Islands vice president Tangi Amataiti, extend their thanks to their families, sponsors, and community for their support received for the campaign.