BY ROMULUS HUTA
THE Solomon Islands representative at this week’s Vanuatu International Junior tennis Open currently underway in Port Vila has bowed out in the quarterfinal of the singles on Wednesday.
Zorika Morgan, 14, is the only tennis player representing the country at the five-day event.
Zorika is based at the Oceania Tennis Federation (OTF) training center based in Lautoka, Fiji under scholarship.
Kick-started with day one of competition on Monday at Port Vila’s Korman Sporting Complex, Zorika began the singles competition campaign nicely done with a victory over New Zealander Ajiah Prittchard Lolo in a three-set round one thriller.
Named as the youngest entry in the competition, Zorika led the first set 6-2 before Lolo came back stronger to win the second set by 7-5. Zorika went into the final set after recess and posted a 6-3 margin to qualify into the quarterfinals.
In the last eight, an unseeded Zorika came up against fourth seed Elena Micic of Australia but lost by two straight sets of 6-1, 6-3.
Zorika paired up with Conatsu Kaga of Northern Marianas for the doubles competition but their campaign was shortened by a first round defeat of 6-1, 6-4 to Elena Micic (Australia) and Clara Cwajgenbaum of New Caledonia.
Meanwhile, this junior international event is a grade 5 tournament according to the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and it is the first to be hosted in Vanuatu.
Players who have enrolled at this event come from the Pacific Region, Australia, New Zealand, the United-States of America, the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, China, Russia and even Latvia.
