Bitter double fault

Francis Casey Alcantara sends a frantic Viber message to this reporter: “Please make it clear that Cebuana Lhuillier is not sponsoring me anymore.”

The 2009 Australian Open junior doubles champion and the country’s top singles player adds: “I don’t want my new sponsor, Peugeot, as well as Philta (Philippine Tennis Association) to get the wrong idea.”

You can’t blame the 25-year-old Alcantara—the stylish, fleet-footed player who belongs to the “It Boys” of Philippine tennis—for feeling anxious amid the leadership crisis that has rocked the Philta for the past several months.

The impasse has shoved local tennis to the brink of total chaos. Accusations fly between two warring Philta factions over the holding of elections to determine the federation’s new set of leaders.

Last month, Alcantara needed to explain in a Facebook post why he was not suiting up for the country’s Davis Cup tie against Thailand. The Pepperdine University alumnus said he was nursing a wrist injury and that politics had nothing to do with his decision to skip the tie.

The Filipino Cuppers met a predictable fate. With the team’s biggest stars opting not to play and despite the valiant efforts of the semiretired Patrick John Tierro, as well as Jeson Patrombon and teenager Alberto Lim Jr., the country lost to the host Thais, 5-0, in the second round of the Davis Cup’s Asia-Oceania Group competitions.

That washout defeat put to naught the Filipinos’ resounding 4-1 victory over the Indonesians in the first round last February. More importantly, it stifled the country’s latest attempt to move up to the elite Group 1, where it last played in 2011.

As the Southeast Asian Games in Kuala Lumpur approaches, the country faces the dire prospects of again missing the services of top players like Alcantara, the world-ranked Treat Huey and Ruben Gonzales, who are both based in the United States, and female internationalist Katharina Lehnert.

The mixed doubles pair of Huey and Denise Dy won the country’s lone gold in the 2015 SEA Games in Singapore. The Filipino netters also bagged three silver and as many bronze medals.

“We should hold this [elections] to save the country’s participation in the SEA Games,” says Philta chair Jean Henri Lhuillier, who is now a contender for president.

But the elections, initially set on Jan. 7 and then moved to Feb. 8, did not materialize. The Philta board of trustees declared on Feb. 8 that the position of president was not up for grabs, drawing scathing opposition from the stakeholders of the local sport. Under pressure from all sectors, the board finally set a third date—April 28—and agreed to open the election for president. But the exercise was moved to yet another date because it fell on a holiday, belatedly declared by President Duterte as the country hosted the Asean Summit.

The dispute was sparked by the sudden resignation of the federation’s president, Parañaque Mayor Edwin Olivarez, on July 28 last year.

Under the Philta by-laws, vice president Randy Villanueva should have taken over. But instead, the majority of the 12-member board of trustees, some of them voting through proxies, set aside the rule on succession and reelected Salvador “Buddy” Andrada, the 81-year-old honorary lifetime president of the Asian Tennis Federation who also served the Philta in the same capacity from 1986-2000.

That vote split the board with Andrada and secretary general Romeo Magat leading one group and Villanueva forming another with Lhuillier, tennis’ longtime patron and hitherto sponsor of the Davis Cup squad.

Belonging to Lhuillier’s group are the country’s major tennis stakeholders, including Palawan Express Padala—which, along with Cebuana Lhuillier, sponsors 80 percent of all age-group tennis competitions hereabouts—as well as tennis gear manufacturers like Toby’s, Wilson Sports, and Dunlop/Slazenger and B-Meg.

Feeling the crunch, Andrada and Magat agreed to hold a “Philippine Tennis Summit” together with the bloc headed by Lhuillier and Villanueva last October. The summit was attended by the sport’s stakeholders and David Haggerty, the president of the International Tennis Federation. In front of the ITF boss, Andrada vowed to step down and immediately call for an election.

“I’m saddened by what has happened to Philippine tennis; this should end once and for all,” says Andrada, who claims he already resigned his post last Feb. 17 and now serves as a member of the Philta board.

Andrada says the board, led by Magat, calls the shots in Philta. Now Magat is very close to Philippine Olympic Committee president Jose “Peping” Cojuangco Jr., having served as POC board member for several years.

Philippine Sports Commission Chair William “Butch” Ramirez has spoken against the “old hands” in Philta, referring to Andrada and Magat, although he has yet to declare full support to Lhuillier’s group.

Because Cojuangco and Ramirez don’t see eye-to-eye on many issues, clearly, lines have been drawn insofar as Philippine tennis is concerned.

In the meantime, the country’s campaign in the SEA Games is left hanging—that is, if Philta manages to send a team at all.