Alcantara, partner cruise into semifinals
Second seeds Francis Casey Alcantara of the Philippines and Christopher Rungkat
of Indonesia continued their impressive campaign as they marched into semifinals
of the 2016 ITF (International Tennis Federation) Hong Kong Futures 2 doubles event
being held at the Victoria Park Tennis Courts.
Alcantara and Rungkat posted a convincing 6-1, 6-1 win over unseeded Russians Aleksandr
Malyshev and Maksim Malyshev in the quarterfinals of the tournament, which offers
a total prize fund of $10,000.
A fitting follow up to their 7-5, 6-3 demolition of Taiwanese pair Hung Jui-Chen
and Wang Chieh-Fu in the first round.
“That was quick. We’re not actually expecting it to be that fast. It’s a great win
for us going into the semifinals,” said the 24-year-old Alcantara, owner of the
2009 Australian Open juniors doubles title with former partner Hsieh Cheng-Pang
of Taiwan.
Alcantara and Rungkat will be facing Markus Kerner of Estonia and Mikelis Libietis
of Latvia, who scored an equally impressive 6-3, 6-3 win over Japanese Shintaro
Imai and Arata Onozawa in the other quarterfinal pairing.
The semifinal matches were scheduled on Thursday night.
It was Alcantara and Rungkat’s fourth semifinal appearance as partners.
They reached the same stage in the Uzbekistan Futures 4 in May, India Futures 2
also in May and Manila Challenger in January.
Source: www.manilatimes.net