PNG set to dominate tennis at the 16th Pacific Games

PAPUA New Guinea will again be hoping to dominate the tennis event at the 16th Pacific Games in Samoa where athletes from 15 countries will compete over 11 days from today at the Apia Park Tennis Courts.
The competition consists of an individual event and a team event. The individual event includes women’s singles and doubles, men’s singles and doubles and mixed doubles.
The men’s and women’s team events each comprise two singles and one doubles match.
Pacific Games women’s singles champion and Team PNG flag-bearer Abigail Tere-Apisah has risen further up the world rankings in the past four years and will be one to watch in Apia.
She will be joined by her sister Marcia and nieces Violet and Patricia, all of whom are again representing Papua New Guinea at the Games.
The women’s doubles gold medal match last time featured all four of the Apisah family, and they will be looking to repeat the memorable feat in Samoa.
New Caledonia’s men’s singles gold and silver medalists from Port Moresby 2015, Nickolas Ngodrela and Julien Delaplane, are not competing in Samoa but Vanuatu’s Cyril Jacobe, who claimed bronze last time, could be the one to watch.
Last time in the men’s doubles gold medal match Jacobe and his Vanuatu teammate Aymeric Mara lost out to Ngodrela and Delaplane, and Vanuatu will be looking to go one better this year.
In the women’s team event Tahiti and Fiji will be vying for silverware.
The full list of countries competing is American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
Tennis begins at 9am (Samoa time) today. Samoa is three hours of Papua New Guinea time. – gns