SEA Games: PH pairs fend off foes in tennis mixed doubles opener

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines went through the gauntlet to get its opening day victories in the mixed doubles tennis competition in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games Sunday at Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.

Treat Huey and Denise Dy had to overcome the late run of the Cambodian duo of Chenda Som and Kenny Bun to take the 6-1, 6-4 win.

Khim Iglupas and Francis Alcantara, however, went the distance with Savenna Ly Nguyen and Quoc Khanh Le of Vietnam and escaped with a tough 6-7, 6-3, 11-9 victory.

Dy, who partnered with Huey in their gold medal campaign in the 2015 SEA Games, said their experience and chemistry helped them push off the Cambodians in the second set.

Cambodia was down 5-1 early in the set before a late surge brought them to within a game from the Filipinos.

“It was a great opportunity for us to work on some things and also get a lot of things that we needed to practice,” said Dy. “But we used our experience and I think that a lot of it was used towards the end of the second set

Huey, meanwhile, is confident that they can replicate the success in Singapore and stamp his return to the SEA Games with a potential gold medal.

“I was injured at the end of 2017 and all of 2018 so I started my comeback in April this year and it’s good to be back healthy and feeling good,” said Huey. “It’s good to play with Denise again and we won the gold four years ago so we’ve definitely got a good shot if we play well.”

Huey and Dy, however, have a tough task at hand on Monday when they take on 2018 Asian Games champions Christopher Rungkat and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia.

Nevertheless, Dy is looking forward for the challenge that the Asian champions will bring.

“They have a lot of momentum and they also have a lot of experience, been playing pretty well the last couple of months so I think it’s going to be a very difficult match tomorrow,” said Dy. “But it will be fun and I hope the fans here today are coming back tomorrow to support us because it’s a very competitive match.”

“They’re the Asian Games champs and we’re the underdogs and for sure we’ll try our hardest,” said Huey. “We’ll give it all for sure but they’re the no.1 seeds for a reason and we’re going to have to play well to beat them.”