By Jun Atienza
JEDDAH — The Association of Tennis Clubs in Jeddah (ASTEC), in cooperation with AlBaik Food Systems Company, began its annual year-ending 2016 tennis tournament — 29th ASTEC tournament — at 5 tennis courts of the Trio-Ranch Country Club here recently.
The event was launched last Friday with the traditional parade of participating teams who were all dressed in their colorful uniforms. The opening ceremony was graced by Philippine Consul General Imelda H. Panolong, and Bassam Al-Seyofi, PR manager of AlBaik Food Systems.
Al-Seyofi thanked all attendees and participants as well as Astec for the continued partnership in providing quality events to the tennis community in Jeddah.
Highlighting the event after the parade of teams was the selection of special awardees for the Best in Uniform teams. The winners were: Elaf Group (Category “Middle Mix” and “B2”), Tornadoes (Category C), Uricane Tennis Club (Lower Mix) and Jeddah Ranao Tennis Club-JRTC (Category “B1”).
Apart from give-away prizes from co-sponsors — tennis rackets, balls and bags from Deltaz Marketing, AlBaik meal coupons, tennis items from ATP-Mon and Sports Track, and cargo vouchers from Skyfreight Forwarders. Qatar Airways, a co-sponsor of the event, also raffled out a round-trip Jeddah-Manila-Jeddah ticket which was won by Carlos Miguel Ordonez. The air ticket was awarded by representatives from Qatar Airways, Mansour and Jeanette Cerbito-Allego, who obliged the audience with a rendition of an OPM pop song. Intermission dance number was provided by Jeddah Knight Movers followed by a song by Sheena Montero.
After the rites, an exhibition singles match between Jeddah’s professional Class “A” players followed, pitting Filipino Rico Gonzales against Spanish Andrews Gallego, which was won by the latter 10-9 (10-4). Cash Prizes were award to both players. The tournament, which is expected to run until Nov. 5, has attracted 46 teams (40 in men's division and 6 in ladies.
Organized by ASTEC under the helm of its current Chairman Bernie Soguilon, Tournament Director Tonton Pana, and Advisers Francis Idjao and Jun Atienza, this event is presented in partnership with AlBaik Food Systems Inc., and is supported by Deltaz Marketing, Skyfreight Forwarders, Sports Track, and Qatar Airways.
