Six in a row for Huey and Alcantara
The seasoned tandem of Treat Huey and Francis Alcantara bucked late errors and eventually swept David Susanto and Sunu-Wahyu Trijanti in three sets, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, to put host Philippines to a 2-1 advantage in the 2017 Davis Cup Asia-Oceania Group II first round tie, Saturday afternoon at the Philippine Columbian Association.
This is the pair’s sixth straight win in the World Cup of Tennis going back to the 2013 Group II semifinal against Thailand.
The Filipinos started slow as Alcantara, who is celebrating his 25th birthday, had some problems on his serve. Nonetheless, Huey stamped his class on his own delivery and the Nationals played exceptionally at the net to dominante the first set.
“Nung first set hindi ako makahold ng serve, because I don’t know, relaxed? Kumpiyansa kasi kami na kaya namin yung dalawa, pero overall happy kami sa play namin,” Alcantara, who hails from Cagayan de Oro, said.
The visitors tried to make a comeback with some good passing winners in the second and third set. Only, the Filipinos stayed composed and took advantage of Trijanti’s shaky serve to put them to within one game of taking the match.
Huey and Alcantara threatened to close out the match at the Susanto serve, even getting four match points, but errors from the former gave Indonesia a lifeline at 5-4.
World-ranked doubles player Huey, who has been serving well, bungled in the final game with two double faults. Eventually, with much egging from the hometown fans, Philippines finished the opponents off at the net.
Taking note of the miscues of the otherwise tandem, captain Karl Santamaria commented that, “It was not the prettiest game, not wasn’t I call a … it wasn’t clean.”
“We still made a lot of errors. Like I always told the two: they always had the chance. It is not as well we hoped to play, [but] we had chances to close out and they did,” the multi-titled mentor added.
Huey also shared that he knew of the opponents’ caliber and it is a matter of them getting their game.
“It was a good team for sure. We lost to Trijanti before in the SEA Games. So, he’s a good doubles player. But we played well when it mattered in the third set to win the match,” the 31-year-old added. “It is good to give the team the 2-1 lead.”
The reverse singles matches is scheduled to be played on Sunday, February 5 at 1:00pm.
Set to play first for the Philippines is Ruben Gonzales, going up against David Susanto. If needed, AJ Lim then takes the court in the deciding rubber versus Aditya Sasongko. Nonetheless, nominations can be changed an hour before the fourth rubber match.
