By James Sablan
james@mvariety.com
Variety News Staff
COMING off a historic run at the Australian Open qualifiers, Saipan’s Carol Young Suh Lee has brought her red-hot momentum to the Middle East, winning her opening match at the ITF W75 Manama in Bahrain on Wednesday.
Lee’s performance was nothing short of clinical, highlighted by a victory in which she dropped only a single game in a set against France’s Chloe Paquet.
The match began as a battle of attrition. Lee was forced to save a handful of break points throughout the opening set. The first and fifth games featured multiple deuces, with the fifth producing their longest rally. Once Lee held serve, however, the floodgates opened. She utilized her baseline depth to break her opponent three times and closed the set 6-1 with a series of aggressive shots.
While the first set was a battle, the second was less contested, with Lee delivering a flawless 6-0 first-round victory, breaking Paquet’s serve three consecutive times.
With this win, Lee advances to the second round, where she will face Uzbekistan’s Maria Timofeeva.
Lee is currently playing the best tennis of her career. Just last week, she made history as the first player from the NMI to reach the final round of a Grand Slam qualifying event at the 2026 Australian Open. Although she fell just short of the main draw in a three-set heartbreaker against Linda Fruhvirtova of the Czech Republic, her return to the ITF tour shows she has bounced back from the loss.
James Sablan has been a sports reporter for Variety since 2013. He was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College and covers all local sports.
