Alcantara enters world’s top 500 doubles players

FRANCIS Casey Alcantara barged into the world’s top 500 in doubles after a succession of impressive finishes in the pro circuit, including a semifinals stint in the tough Canada Futures 6.

Without ranking at the start of the season, the 24-year-old from Cagayan de Oro, made dramatic inroads into the ITF rankings where he is now 456th in doubles and 1150th in singles.

“Yes it was the highest rank so far. Hopefully I can still improve it some more at the end of the year,” said Alcantara who was the 2009 Australian Open juniors doubles champion.

With British partner Farris Fathi Gosea, Alcantara made the semifinals of the Canada F6 last week.

They will try to outdo themselves when they compete in the Niagara $25,000 tournament this week. From there he will campaign in Vietnam for the next four weeks.

“It’s good to be in the tour, am beginning to enjoy it and get the hang of it,” said the graduate of Pepperdine University.

Alcantara, a regular at the national team and in the Davis Cup, also made doubles semifinals in Hong Kong F2, Uzbekistan F4, India F2 and United States Futures in tandem with Indonesian star Christopher Rungkat this year.

He and Rungkat made the finals of the Manila ATP Challenger. But he won his first tour title with Johnny Arcilla in the Manila F2 after making the finals of Manila F1.