INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines – Taking no chances, the Philippines again threw its biggest guns at Pakistan in yesterday’s doubles and secured the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group 2 semifinal tie at the shell courts of the Philippine Columbian Association.

Fil-Americans Cecil Mamiit and Treat Huey, who swept the opening singles Friday night, outclassed Aqeel Khan and Jivran Muhammedi, 6-2, 6-4, 6-0, to give the hosts an insurmountable 3-0 edge and render today’s reverse singles insignificant.

They were called in at the last minute to replace PJ Tierro and Francis Casey Alcantara for the pivotal doubles, a gameplan Mamiit hinted at Friday night after the Cebuana Lhuillier RP Davis Cup team posted a commanding 2-0 lead in the tie.

“We wanted to finish it as soon as possible,” said non-playing team captain Cris Cuarto. “After all yesterday’s singles wasn’t that tough.”

“We are very, very happy, right now we want to celebrate this and then think about the next tie,” added Cuarto.

Mamiit and Huey are listed to play today, but there’s a strong chance they will give way to Tierro and Alcantara against the Khans in the reverse singles.

The Filipinos, who dumped Hong Kong last March, advanced to a Group 2 showdown with New Zealand, which RP will host in September.

Unbeatable

New Zealand also took an unbeatable 3-0 lead over Indonesia in their best-of-five tie hosted by the Kiwis in Hamilton.

The winner of the RP-New Zealand duel will move up to Group 1 next year.

The Pakistanis, trying to avoid a shutout in the third set, actually forced a deuce on Huey’s serve in the sixth game.

Mamiit then responded with a crosscourt winner followed by a looping return over an off-footed Khan to seal the victory after an hour and 32 minutes.

Mamiit and Huey jumped and bumped chests while the crowd applauded the country’s second straight victory after dropping all three ties – against Japan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – last year in Group 1.

Alcantara and Tierro later joined them at centercourt and threw T-shirts to the crowd.

“I’m very confident that whoever wins in Indonesia-New Zealand, we can pull it off because we have a complete team,” added Cuarto.

“If New Zealand wins we will hold the tie here and play it on slow surface because they [New Zealand players] are used to playing in hardcourts.”

The 23-year-old Huey, a graduate of University of Virginia, made a grand debut locally when he demolished Aqeel, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2, in the first singles.

Mamiit then gave RP an imposing advantage after a 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 rout of Khalil Khan in the other match.

The Pakistanis found their six-tie winning run snapped abruptly as they missed the heart and soul of the team, Aisam Qureshi, who honored a previous commitment to play in the Campbell Hall of Fame tennis championships in Newport, Rhode Island.

Aqeel, Khalil and Jalil formed the same team which bowed to a Mamiit-led RP squad in 2007 at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.