Philippine national tennis team ace Francis Casey Alcantara and Vietnam’s top player Ly Hoang Nam reigned supreme in the Hai Dang Tennis Cup as they won the doubles title in Tay Ninh City, Vietnam.
Alcantara and Nam overwhelmed the South Korean pair of Uisung Park and Ji Hoon Son in the finals on Saturday of the $15,000 ITF event, 6-3, 6-1.
So dominant were the Southeast Asian duo that they broke the Koreans five times and dropped serve only once. Alcantara and Nam scored a total of 57 points in their straight-set demolition of the Koreans who could only muster 33 points.
All tournament long, Alcantara and Nam maintained their superiority over the rest of the field. They upended SEA Games bronze medalists Quoc Khanh Le and Phuong Van Nguyen of Vietnam in the opening round, 6-3, 6-3, before encountering some stiff resistance in the quarterfinals from Japanese Shohei Chikami and Masamichi Imamura, 4-6, 6-2, 10-7.
In the semifinals, Alcantara and Nam easily dispatched another recent SEA Games bronze medal-winning tandem, Vietnamese Minh Tuan Pham and Linh Giang Trinh in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.
Nam will be eyeing a 2nd title on Sunday in the finals of the men’s singles competition.
He and Alcantara will seek back-to-back doubles titles next week when they partner anew in another ITF M15 tournament in Vietnam.
Meanwhile, another Filipino tennis star, recent SEA Games men’s doubles gold medalist Treat Huey, saw his campaign in the ATP Challenger event Rothesay Open in Nottingham, Great Britain end in the semifinals after he and American partner William Blumberg were booted out by local bets Julian Cash and Henry Patten, 6-7 (5-7), 3-6.
