By Cesar Q. Quilenderino
JEDDAH — Team A amassed a total of 30 points against Team D’s 21, bashing a 3-to-1 sets win over their opponent after their match last Friday at the sports complex of King Abdulaziz University.
In Category B2+/B2, Julius Garcia/Rauf Butt of Team D trailed 1-3 against Team A’s Mario Betorio/Alimodin Dipatuan after losing their service games in the second and fourth games and failing to break their opponent serve in between during the third with identical 40-15 losing game points. Julius Garcia held serve in the next game after another 40-15 game points and his double break of Team A’s Mario Betorio in a sudden-death deuce in the sixth game helped even up at 6-all. Another three sudden-death deuces ensued in games 7, 8, and 9 and fell into the hands of Team A’s Mario Betorio/Alimodin Dipatuan to push them into a wide 6-3 lead. The Team D pair bounced straight back from 3-6 with consistent baseline shots by Raul Butt and stifling attacking net games by Julius Garcia to roll up the next and last 5 games into 8-6 finish to win the set for Team D.
Bernie Soguilon/Ali Callanta of Team A took control in the category Legend match against Team D’s Pol Fernandez/CQuilenderino to register their own come-from-behind win at 8-5. Losing Ali Callanta’s serve in the thir game via a sudden death deuce, Team A trailed 1-2 and clawed its way back through the 4,5, and 6 games with a string of 40-love, 40-40 sudden-death, 40-15 game points to thrust into 4-2 lead. The Team D’s doubles broke the serve of Team A’s Ali Callanta at 30-40 in the seventh game, then Pol Fernandez won his serve in the eighth to tie the scores at 4-4. Similarly, Team A bagged the next two games with hold-serve and break-serve wins in succession to go a step ahead of their opponents. The Team D’s pair broke the serve of Ali Callanta in the 11th game to inch closer at 5-6, but Team A’s pair leaned on the consistent passing forehand shots in the next and last two games to eke out a 8-5 victory for the Category Legend.
In Category C/C, the tandem of Sherwin Narvais/Nilo Gamboa of Team A got bumped 1-2, then at 2-3 against Team D’s Mencool Eman Usman, who was paired with Madj Ali. The Team D pair broke the serve of Nilo Gamboa in the third game to chalk up at 2-1 lead. Team A’s Sherwin Narvais/Nilo Gamboa took their turn of breaking Madj Ali’s serve in the next game to tie it at 2-all. In the fourth frame, playmaker Eman Usman made the most of his applauded backhand shots that produced winners to bring back his team to a 3-2 lead. But Team A pair shut off the daylight out of the Eman Usman’s stylish game by breaking his serve right back in the sixth game to level up at 3-all. Then, they cruised through following seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, and 11th for an 8-3 victory in the set.
In the B1/B2+ Category, Team D’s Memed Darkum/Moi Noto lost grip of their 3-1 and 4-2 leads in the early stage of their match, allowing Team A’s Fred Masangkay/Boy Isuga wresting the lead at 5-4 and streaking through frames 11th, 12th, and 15th to nail down an 8-5 finish for Team A — which summed up their total team score with 30, over the 21 scored by Team D.
With one more set to go, Team A leads the tournament with 56 points overall points well ahead of trailing Team D, which garnered 51 overall at this point of the competition. Yet, Team D is close to overtake the lead for having another match to play against Team C, aside from the one against Team A.
This team tennis tournament is organized and managed by the Samahang Pinoy Tennis Club of Jeddah with support of TFC, a TV channel named True Filipino Channel that gave away sport T-shirts for the tournament players, club members, as well as the guests and visitors.
