A few players from Guam have earned a point or two in professional tennis, but none have crossed the threshold and have become professional tennis players.<\/p>\n
Soon, this may change.<\/p>\n
Over the past two weeks, while competing in the two separate events at International Tennis Federation J30 Lautoka 2026 Tennis Tournament in Lautoka, Fiji, Guam\u2019s Kevin Seo appeared in two boys singles finals – losing the first but winning the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were no easy matches, and the two finals, in particular, were extremely demanding both tactically and mentally,\u201d Seo said.<\/p>\n
Seo described the tournaments in Fiji as a \u201cdebut stage for underrated blue chip players.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also a place where many promising players from Australia, New Zealand, and across Oceania emerge,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In the first tournament, which took place April 21-26, Seo lost the championship match to New Zealand\u2019s Liam Howes 7-6(1), 6-2. The two also met in the second round of the second tournament. Seo won that match 7-5, 6-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the final of the first tournament, every ball he hit seemed to land deep on the lines, and he stayed solid throughout without losing focus,\u201d Seo said. \u201cIn the second match, to avoid getting trapped by his deep, aggressive hitting, I had to add more topspin and attack deeper with higher trajectories. In the end, I was able to turn the match around through my topspin game.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the second tournament, which took place from April 28 to May 3, Seo was losing to Australia\u2019s Xander Crabb severely and faced a match point against him. Seo trailed 1-6, 1-5, 30-40 but rallied to win 1-6, 7-5, 6-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly don\u2019t even remember how I managed to come back and win. I was completely focused, and it felt like my body just reacted on instinct – almost like I was in another zone,\u201d Seo said.<\/p>\n
With a finals appearance and a championship win recorded, Seo\u2019s ITF junior ranking shot up a meteoric 51 points. Currently, Seo\u2019s world ranking is No. 771 – 26 spots lower than his all-time best. Although he is happy with his individual performances and the points windfall, he knows there is more work to be done.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo reach my goal of entering the pro zone, I need to break into the top 200. However, since I have very few doubles points, I have to rely mainly on my singles results. Realistically, my immediate goal is to break into the top 400,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few players from Guam have earned a point or two in professional tennis, but none have crossed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[131907,64,63,2359,2358,131925,131905,88749,38304,131912,9146,300095,85,300096,747,131909],"class_list":["post-648645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-athletic-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ball-games","tag-balls","tag-games-of-physical-skill","tag-grass-field-surfaces","tag-individual-sports","tag-international-tennis-federation","tag-lawn-games","tag-outdoor-sports","tag-racket-sports","tag-sports","tag-summer-sports","tag-tennis","tag-turf-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}