Vietnam SEA Games men’s tennis doubles gold medalist Ruben Gonzales and partner Reese Stalder of the United States will make their first semifinals appearance as a duo after they won their quarterfinal match in Georgia’s Rome Challenger on Friday morning (Philippine time) in Italy.
Gonzales and Stalder, seeded second in the $53,120 ATP Challenger event, displayed sharp form from start to finish as they breezed through Aleksandar Kovacevic of the United States and Michail Pervolarakis of Greece, 6-3, 6-3.
This was the second straight set triumph for Gonzales and Stalder. In the opening round, they won over Americans Ezekiel Clark and Joshua Sheehy, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1).
The road to the finals, though, will be much tougher as Gonzales and Stalder will be up against youthful 3rd seeds Rinky Hijikata of Australia and Yu Hsiou Hsu of Chinese Taipei.
Meanwhile, two other Filipino netters did not have the same winning result in the international pro circuit on Thursday.
Treat Huey, the other half of the Philippines’s SEA Games men’s doubles gold medalists, fell in the quarterfinals of the $604,010 ATP Infosys Hall of Fame Open in Rhode Island, Newport, USA.
Huey and Radu Albot of Moldova were eliminated by Ramkumar Ramanathan of India and John-Patrick Smith of Australia, 1-6, 4-6.
Over in Tunisia, 19-year-old Miko Eala’s magical run in the Magic Hotel Tours International Tennis Federation (ITF) M15 Monastir ended in the Round of 16.
After winning three qualifying matches and pulling the upset rug from under the tournament 7th seed in the opening round of the main draw, Eala was beaten soundly in the second round by Abedallah Shelbayh of Jordan, 0-6, 2-6.
