Eric Olivarez Jr., and Indian partner Sahil Deshmuk trounced second seeds Jirat Navasirisonboon and Suthinan Tanthaseraneewat of Thailand, 7-5, 6-2, Saturday to capture the boys’ doubles crown of the ITF-Ho Chi Minh City junior tennis championships in Vietnam
It was the first ever crown for the 16-year-old Olivarez who made the quarterfinals of the singles event. Olivarez and Deshmukh also reached the finals a few weeks before in Indonesia.
He is expected to move up in world juniors ranking, where he started at 900th early this year to 650 before the tourney.
“Jed [Olivarez] has come a long way in just a very short time that we have been traveling together,” said coach Manny Tecson in his e-mail. “He is learning a lot of things in the Tour with me.”
Olivarez and Deshmukh, whom he defeated in the second round of the singles, broke in the 12th game of the thrilling first set to take the sting out of the Thais.
Olivarez and Deshmukh only had to use the momentum in the second set to complete the upset victory.