Remarkable Lim win streak hits wall

ALBERTO Lim Jr., put up a gallant stand before bowing to top seed Chayanon Kaewsuto of Thailand, 6-4, 6-2, Saturday in the boys semifinals and posting his best finish in his young career in the ITF Oneject Indonesia in Bandung.

The 13-year-old Lim, touted as among the new breed of tennis stars for the Philippines, tried to impose his power game against the 18-year-old Thai but yielded to his more experienced opponent in the end.

Still it was a remarkable run for Lim, who had strung up seven straight victories counting the qualifying matches. He was just only on his third tournament in his journey in the junior circuit.

“At only 13 years old and one month I have time to adjust all of these things and AJ is a very intelligent and smart boy that absorbs my coaching very quickly to his benefit,” said his coach Manny Tecson.

Tecson remarked that Lim could even be better than his ward Jeson Patrombon when the country’s top-ranked singles player was 13.

“AJ (Lim) showed the big improvements mental, physical and technical games. Of course this circuit also showed me new things that we need to keep developing to integrate in AJ’s game for his constant evolvement as a world class junior tennis player,” Tecson added.

Lim, who won 16-under title in Indonesia last month and the Orange Bowl age-group last year, earlier shocked third seed Liang Weng-chun of Chinese Taipei (6-1, 6-1) and 12th seed Ajay Yadav of India, 6-4, 6-3.