Top seeds Ruben Gonzales and Treat Huey – as well as defending gold medalists Jeson Patrombon and Francis Casey Alcantara – advanced to the men’s doubles semifinals of tennis in the 31st Southeast Asian Games on Thursday.
Gonzales and Huey scored a 6-2, 6-2 win over Malaysia’s Hao Shen Koay and Syed Mohamed Agil Bin Sye Naguib at the Hanaka Sports and Service Center.
They will face the winner of the other quarterfinals between Thailand’s Yuttana Charoenphon and Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul; and Vietnam’s Giang Trinh Linh and Mihn Tuan Pham that was played late Thursday.
Patrombon and Alcantara previously beat Gonzales and Huey in the Philippines 2019 SEA Games final but are unseeded here. They ousted Indonesia’s Muhammad Fitriadi and Christopher Rungkat, 6-1, 7-5, to also move to the semifinals.
They will face either Thailand’s Pruchya Isaro and Thantub Suksumran and host Vietnam’s Quoc Khan Le and Văn Phuong Nguyen also in Friday’s semifinals.
“Hopefully, I will finally get one [gold] in the Southeast Asian Games, but let’s see,” the 36-year-old veteran Gonzales said.
Gonzales settled for the men’s doubles singles in 2015 in Singapore but with different partners.
“It’s good that we have finally played our first match since we didn’t get into play in the team events so we finally got the feeling of how to play in this kind of environment,” Gonzales added. “Winning the gold is always the goal, but our focus remains winning one match at a time.”
