Recent Asian Games mixed doubles bronze medalist and Southeast Asian Games men’s doubles gold medal winner Francis Casey Alcantara teamed up with Indonesia’s top player Christopher Rungkat to win the International Tennis Federation (ITF) M15 Ipoh Perak in Malaysia.
Seeded first in the $15,000 competition, Alcantara and Rungkat easily prevailed on Saturday afternoon over Thijmen Loof of the Netherlands and Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul of Thailand, 6-2, 6-0, in the finals hosted by the Perak Lawn Tennis Association in Ipoh Perak, Malaysia.
Alcantara and Rungkat had to play two matches on Saturday en route to their championship run. The veteran pair prevailed in just a little over an hour during their morning semifinals match against the Chinese fourth seeds Qian Sun and Sheng Tang, 6-3, 6-2
The veteran pair of Alcantara and Rungkat were coming off a surprise opening round exit from the ITF M25 Hua Hin in Thailand the previous week.
They went through some scary moments in their first round match in Malaysia this week, coming back from a set down to prevail in three sets over Andrea Bacaloni of Italy and Hayato Matsuoka of Japan, 6-7 (5-7). 6-1, 10-4.
Things really started to click for Alcantara and Rungkat in the quarterfinals when they triumphed in straight sets over the Malaysian tandem of Hao Sheng Koay and Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4.
Alcantara, currently 232nd in the world just last month reached a career-high world ranking of 223. and Rungkat, formerly the world number 68 in doubles, will be going for their second straight championship next week as they are set to see action in the KL M15 ITF World Tennis Tour 2023 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
