Filipino tennis doubles ace Treat Huey reached the quarterfinals of an ATP Challenger event in Europe for the third straight week as he and Croatian partner Franko Skugor defeated Victor Cornea of Romania and Adam Pavlasek of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 7-5, on Tuesday in the 42,500 Euros Aspria Tennis Cup in Milan, Italy.
The first set was a close affair which was tied until the 8th game at 4-all as the opposing pairs exchanged a break apiece. The pivotal ninth game proved to be the difference as Huey and Skugor broke Cornea’s serve to gain the lead for the opening set which they eventually closed out on Huey’s serve.
Cornea and Pavlasek, however, roared back in the second set as Huey and Skugor saw themselves trailing 2-4 after the Croatian dropped his serve.
But Huey and Skugor saw a window that they could capitalize on, and that was the vulnerable service game of Cornea. The Filipino and Croatian tandem broke Cornea’s serve twice more the rest of the second set to secure the match in straight sets.
Huey, the recent Vietnam SEA Games men’s doubles gold medalist, and Skugor, teamed up the previous week in the Emilia-Romagna Tennis Cup in Parma, Italy, where they lost in the final eight via third set super tiebreak to the eventual champions of the tournament.
Huey and Skugor are both former top 20 doubles players in the world. Huey was formerly ranked 18th in the world after he made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and the semifinals of Wimbledon in 2016.
Skugor, who has made the Wimbledon semifinals twice in his career, was formerly the 17th ranked doubles player in the world.
