Rain delays state tennis tournament

Kaua‘i’s Sarah Kukino is up one set and Kaua‘i’s Chas Okamoto is down one in the rain-delayed Carlsmith Ball Tennis State Championships at the Holua Tennis Complex and Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort on the Big Island.

No. 7 Kukino and No. 8 Okamoto received first-round byes for Wednesday and played their first set of matches yesterday morning.

In her first match, Kukino defeated Ashley Pascual of Baldwin High School, 6-1, 6-3 and advanced to her afternoon match against Tezra Damaso of Pearl City High School. Heavy rain delayed the matches, before the players finally took the court. However, bad weather continued, forcing all of the matches to be postponed to today. Kukino was up 5-2 before the matches were stopped.

Okamoto was down a set, 6-2, before his match was stopped. He had won his morning match against Shane Webb of Castle High School, 6-3, 6-1 and advanced to play Joshua Wong of Hilo High School.

Absent from tournament play was No. 3 Lyndsey Tom who withdrew from the tournament because of ankle injury incurred at the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation championships two weeks ago.

The decision to withdraw was made yesterday morning when her ankle was deemed too injured to play on.

Tom had been resting it since she slipped during the KIF championships which caused her to forfeit her semifinal match to Kaua‘i’s Cassady Sirois. Sirois finished as the KIF’s runner-up behind Kukino.

Sirois lost in the state tournament’s first round to Marika Fujio-White of Hawai‘i Prep Academy, 7-5, 6-3.

All of the KIF’s representatives in the boys and girls doubles categories who played on Wednesday, dropped their matches.

The only pair that played yesterday was Kapa‘a’s Kila Youn and and Ador Lopez. They lost to Ikaika Greenlaw and Peter Shewmaker of Hilo High School, 6-1, 6-4.

Matches will resume where they left off, today.