SAIPAN — Fresh off a breakthrough first year on the professional tour, Saipan’s Carol Lee is back home briefly to recharge with family, sharpen details with her longtime coach and father before making one last push toward a year-end top-200 ranking.
“At the beginning of the year my goal was to reach top 500… then my next goal was top 200 by the end of the year. Now I’m at 216 and I’m so close,” Lee said, adding that she expects to play Australian Open qualifying in January.
Lee, a Georgia Tech graduate who turned full-time pro last fall, relocated training to Germany this season at T2B Academy in Wiesbaden, outside Frankfurt. “I’ve been training there full time since the beginning of the year,” she said.
Her stop at home is part rest, part tune-up. After months of near-nonstop competition, Lee said she needed “a little reset,” island time, and targeted work with her dad, who recently traveled with her and continues to scout matches, even from afar across seven to nine time zones. “He would wake up and watch me play… then he would give me feedback,” she said.
The 23-year-old traces her resilience to an early leap: a full scholarship to the ITF Player Development academy in Fiji where she received a four-year crash course in independence and elite training. Days started at 6 a.m. with runs on rugby fields, followed by online school, double tennis sessions, fitness and chores.
Before that, Lee learned the sport on Saipan’s courts, crediting Garapan Elementary and Saipan Community School and her former principal Mr. Winkfield for flexibility that let her chase tournaments while keeping up with assignments. Early successes at local events led to off-island competitions in Guam and the Pacific.
This season brought both sting and payoff. In May, Lee lost a three-set semifinal at an event in Georgia, then ground through qualifying the very next week and captured her first W50 title after consecutive three-hour battles. “Instead of falling apart… I was able to get myself up and kept going,” she said.
Above all, Lee says representing the NMI on tour is a constant source of pride, even when she has to correct people who’ve never heard of Saipan or who’ve mislabeled her flag. “It was very cool that I was able to tell… where I was from, to people around the world,” she said.
Her message to island kids is simple: think big, start now. “To all the young players in NMI, don’t be afraid to dream big… even though we are from a small island, [that] doesn’t mean that your dreams have to be small,” Lee said. “Keep working hard and believe in yourself.”
