Iglupas, Otico gain Phinma tennis Final 8
TOP Filipino junior campaigners Khim Iglupas and John Bryan Otico brushed off their respective rivals yesterday to barge into the boys’ and girls’ singles quarterfinals of the PSC-Phinma International Juniors Tennis Championships Week 2 at Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.
Iglupas, who won the twin tournament’s Week 1, downed Japanese Sakura Yonehara, 6-4, 6-7 (7-3), 6-2, to keep her bid for a singles sweep alive in the ITF Grade 4 event sponsored by Phinma Group of Companies and the Philippine Sports Commission.
The 17-year-old stalwart of the Philippine Tennis Academy overcame the jolt of dropping the second set to the hard-fighting Yonehara by breaking her Japanese foe’s serve early in the deciding set and then coasting to victory.
Article continues after this advertisementOtico thumped David Marshall Nguyen of the United States, 6-2, 7-5, and will next take on Indonesia’s Muhammad Althaf Dhaifullah, who ousted Arthur Pantino, 2-6, 6-1, 6-4.
Like Iglupas—who set up a clash with either Ayumi Hirata or Ayana Rengii of Japan—Otico and Pantino are scholars of PTA, a group founded by tennis patrons Rommie Chan, Oscar Hilado and Jean Henri Lhuillier.
But two other Filipinos—Shaira Hope Rivera and Maia Balce—were eliminated. Rivera bowed to Wang Xinyu of China, 6-2, 6-2, while Balce lost to Himari Sato, 6-4, 6-2.
Article continues after this advertisementTop seed Ayumi Miyamoto dumped compatriot Risa Fukutoku, 6-0, 6-2, to set up a quartefinal clash with Sato.
