Experience trampled youth this time.
Filipino pride and World No. 18 doubles player Treat Huey and long-time Davis Cup campaigner Ruben Gonzales mustered all their experience to subdue Chinese Taipei’s Jui-Chen Hung and Chieh-Fu Wang in four sets, 6-7, 6-2, 6-3, 6-4, to keep the hopes of Philippines alive at the 2016 Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Zone Group II second round tie, Saturday at the Philippine Columbian Association.
The Filipinos had an early chance to break the Taiwanese serve as early as the very first game of the match, but the visitors held on to their service games. Neither duo gave in as the match stayed on serve, before Hung and Wang emerged victorious from the tiebreak.
Team Captain Karl Santamaria agreed that it was not about them not playing their game in this opening set, but also “the opponent’s also playing well. They’re not missing.” He also shared, “Our players also were not gelling like we expected.”
However, Huey and Gonzales turned it around in the following frame. The Davis Cup veterans used their service as weapons to dictate the pace of the match in the next two sets. An early service break, something they had failed to register in the opening period, in each of the second and third sets sealed the deal for the Nationals.
In the second set, the Philippine pair pressured the young opponents to make hurried shots leading to three straight unforced errors, giving away the set to the former. It was a similar story in the third set’s penultimate game, before Huey showed everyone why he had just recently reached Wimbledon semifinals.
Huey and Gonzales pulled away in the fourth and, consequently, final frame at 5-1. Nevertheless, Gonzales could not finish them off on his service game. Thus, Hung and Wang gained confidence and snatched three straight games to cut the deficit to one, 4-5.
Fortunately for the Philippines, the most experienced player on the court was about to serve.
Despite some struggles and some last-ditch effort from the Taiwanese, Gonzales made amends for earlier missed chances and forced the opposition to commit errors as he protected the net. Huey then finished the match the way he closed out the second, as two service winners and another excellent first delivery sent the Chinese Taipei tandem packing.
Santamaria was happy that “Plan B” had worked.
“The plan really was to field in Treat and Niño (Alcantara), since they have long played together. The Plan B was to partner Treat with either Jeson (Patrombon) or Ruben.”
After what had happened to Alcantara yesterday, the team decided to have Gonzales take his place, knowing the latter has also partnered with Huey before.
Gonzales was relieved that he bounced back after not having closed out the match earlier. When asked how he had managed to play eight sets of intense tennis. He added, “I trained hard for six months and it paid off.”
Santamaria also praised how Gonzales had pulled it off, and when he had asked Gonzales to play in this day’s doubles match, here is what the top 2 singles player of the country told his Captain: “He said he felt like he can still go on.”
And as Gonzales goes on, as do the hopes of reaching Group I.
The reverse singles is scheduled to be played tomorrow, Sunday at the same venue at an earlier time at 1pm. The scheduled matches are:
Francis Casey Alcantara (PHI) vs Ti Chen (TPE)
Ruben Gonzales (PHI) vs Liang-Chi Huang (TPE)
However, as stated before, nominees could be changed from now until an hour before the commencement of the matches.
