{"id":495199,"date":"2026-02-24T00:52:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495199\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T00:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T00:52:10","slug":"maui-tennis-juniors-compete-in-18u-international-tennis-tournament-maui-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495199\/","title":{"rendered":"Maui Tennis Juniors compete in 18U International Tennis tournament : Maui Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>   February 23, 2026, 2:00 PM HST  <\/p>\n<p>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/August-Kiili-1-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-517554\"\/>August Ki\u02bbili of Wailuku Junior Tennis Club. <\/p>\n<p>Maui junior tennis players recently competed in the first-ever International Tennis Federation (ITF) 18-and-under tournament held on Maui.<\/p>\n<p>The event took place at the Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch and brought together players from around the world. Countries represented included the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Luxembourg, South Africa, Japan, Korea, India and the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The 18U level is the highest level of junior tennis before players move on to professional events. Many top pros, including Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Iga \u015awi\u0105tek, played ITF junior tournaments during their development.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/august-kiili-and-peter-lopez-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-517558\"\/>August Ki\u02bbili of Wailuku Junior Tennis Club and Peter Lopez of K\u012bhei. <\/p>\n<p>ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/p>\n<p>Maui players who qualified and competed included Peter Lopez of K\u012bhei, Violet Kato, Dillon Keller, Makena Keller and August Ki\u02bbili of Wailuku Junior Tennis Club.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/dillon-and-makena-keller-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-517559\"\/>Dillon Keller and Makena Keller of Wailuku Junior Tennis Club.<\/p>\n<p>Ki\u02bbili, a 14-year-old eighth grader at Kamehameha Middle School, was the youngest athlete in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis tournament was a great experience for me to see the level of some of the best players in the world and where I stack up \u2014 what I\u2019m doing well and what I need to improve,\u201d Ki\u02bbili said.<\/p>\n<p>ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW AD<\/p>\n<p>For Maui players, having an ITF event on island was a rare opportunity. Most Hawai\u02bbi athletes must travel to the mainland or overseas to compete at this level. Hosting the tournament locally gave Maui juniors the chance to compete against internationally ranked players without leaving the state.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/itf-world-tennis-tour-juniors-1024x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-517560\"\/>ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"February 23, 2026, 2:00 PM HST August Ki\u02bbili of Wailuku Junior Tennis Club. Maui junior tennis players recently&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[198697,198698,49,48,616,46411,157021,198699,198700,198701,2083,198702,7627,82,593,198703,198704],"class_list":{"0":"post-495199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-august-kiili","9":"tag-billon-keller","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-iga-swiatek","13":"tag-international-tennis-federation","14":"tag-junior-tennis","15":"tag-kiolet-kato","16":"tag-makena-keller","17":"tag-maui-tennis","18":"tag-novak-djokovic","19":"tag-peter-lopez","20":"tag-rafael-nadal","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-tennis","23":"tag-wailuku-junior-tennis-club","24":"tag-wailuku-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}