ShareThisMANILA — The Philippines swept the four-nation pre-qualifying tournament held in Colombo, Sri Lanka to barge into the final of the 2011 Asia/Oceania Junior Davis Cup set this coming April in India.
Photo shows (from left) Jurence Mendoza, Betto Orendain, Kyle Parpan and coach Roland Kraut during a break in the World junior elims.
The up-and-coming Filipino netters, led by the brilliant Jurence Mendoza, shutout Bhutan and top-favorite India in identical, 3-0 wins before obliging to 2-1 finishing kick over Syria and the host country to return home unscathed
Mendoza, one of the young, promising protégé of Jean Henri Lhuillier, whose firm, Cebuana Lhuillier, bankrolled the Filipinos trip, went home undefeated in eight games he played, including a pair of wins over Syrian Amer Naow, who with his ITF 308TH ranking is the highest-rated campaigner in the tournament.
Mendoza drubbed Naow, 7-6, 6-0, and -3, 4-6, 6-2, in the Filipinos’ 3-0 sweep of their Syrians counterparts. His other triumphs came ast the expense of Trandin Wangchuk and Thinley Norbu of Bhutan, both on 6-1, 6-1 counts, and Hussein Hassan and Gamdan Alobeed of India, both on 6-0, 6-0 blanking.
Jacob Lagman emerged the second best bet Filipino, coming out victor in four of the six games he played. Romnee Joseph split his two-game assignments.
Coach Roland Kraut was so happy with his wards’ performance even as he hopes high in his boys’ next assignment – the Asia/Oceania Cup finals.
“We achieved or main goal, which was to finish in the top three to qualify for the Asia/Oceania Jr. Davis Cup Final Qualifying round on April in India, “ he said.
“We did even better by winning the whole tournament beating pre-tournament Syria and hosts Sri Lanka. This helped boost the confidence of the 3 players leading up to the next stage.”
“Now we have to get ready for the stronger challenge ahead. I saw that we have a solid doubles team. We just need another solid singles player so we can compete with tougher teams such as Australia, Japan, China, etc.,” he said