INCHEON, South Korea—Katharina Melissa Lehnert is an easy nomination for Philippine tennis poster girl.
Her no-surrender approach to the game, the still untapped potential plus her disarming looks are more than enough qualifications. Still, the 20-year-old Filipino-German wants to give Filipino tennis fans more reason to look up to her.
“I want to make it to the top 100 in the world,” she said.
“Tennis isn’t that big a sport in the Philippines just yet and I really feel that it can be more popular if young people have someone to look up to,” said Lehnert, whose mother, Imelda Lungsod-Lehnert, has Ilocano roots.
She certainly is making strides in the right direction, winning a silver and a bronze in the Burma (Myanmar) Southeast Asian Games. But the 17th Asian Games here is her biggest tournament representing the Philippines so far.
“The pressure actually pushes me to do better,” she said.