Philippine Sports News and Updates

MANILA – The Philippines dominated the first day of the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Zone Group II semifinal tie as its netters, Treat Huey and Cecil Mamiit, posted wins over their Pakistani opponents in straight sets.

“I’m happy with their performance,” RP Davis Cup coach Chris Cuarto told abs-cbnNEWS.com. The Philippines, currently with a 2-0 advantage over Pakistan, is just one victory away from reaching the Group II final in September where it will face New Zealand or Indonesia.

“One more match,” said Cuarto. “Hopefully we’ll get it tomorrow.” The Davis Cup tie is a best-of-five series with two singles matches played on the first day, a doubles match on the second day, and the reverse singles matches on the final day.

Huey clinched the crucial first singles match against Aqeel Khan, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2, on Friday afternoon at the Philippine Columbian Association (PCA) center court in Paco, Manila.

“I tried to play the best I could,” said the Filipino-American. Before quickly bagging the third set and winning the match with an ace, Huey struggled in the second set as he was down 3-5. Huey then broke Khan’s service game twice and held serve twice as well to take the second set, 7-5.

Cecil Mamiit posted a comfortable win against Khan’s younger brother in the second singles match of the day.

Mamiit, the 2005 Southeast Asian Games singles gold medalist, dominated Jalil Khan, 6-1, 6-2, 6-1. Mamiit was leading the final set 4-0 when Khan held serve to score a game, making it 4-1. Mamiit held serve to lead with 5-1. He won the match by breaking his opponent’s serve.

“I was too excited,” shared Mammit of his thoughts on the match. “I had to slow down and take care of business.”

Meantime, the RP team is aiming to seal the semifinal tie on Saturday with the doubles match featuring Patrick-John Tierro and Francis Casey Alcantara against Jalil Khan and Jibran Mohammadi.

It would be the first time that Tierro and Alcantara would be playing doubles. “We know each other. I hope we’ll do our best,” said Tierro.

Alcantara, the 2009 Australian Open Junior Boys’ Doubles champion, remarked: “Ready naman lahat.”

However, he added that the doubles line-up can still be changed by Coach Cuarto. Davis Cup rules allow a coach to change his line-up provided that it is done one hour before the match.

The doubles match on Saturday starts at 3 p.m. The reverse singles matches on Sunday will also begin at 3 p.m.

The Pakistani team came into the tie without its No. 1 player Aisam Qureshi, who pulled out of Davis Cup because he is currently entered in a tournament in the United States. Pakistan’s team is coached by Rashid Malik. Its fourth member is Yasir Khan.

• ABS-CBN News
• Philippine Sports Central