|
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Victorino awesome in Baguio; wins sinlges, doubles titles
JOSEPH Victorino imposed his will and dominated the Baguio Tennis Open by winning the singles then the doubles with the country's top ranked player.
Victorino powered his way to the finals and beat giant killer Adelo Abadia, 6-2, 6-2, then suited up minutes later with Johnny Arcilla to trounce the tourney's third and fourth seeds, Rolando Ruel and Chemil Mantua, 6-3, 6-4, to rule the doubles event.
The wins gave Victorino a hefty P60,000 pyacheck, P40,000 from the singles and half of the same amount for his doubles effort, his second best after the Philippine Columbian Association Tennis Open where he won a total of P100,000.
The 21-year old from Quezon City was all pumped up after his Abadia win that he went to the doubles finals with Arcilla brimming with confidence.
"My level of condidence was high and I know that I can still last. I was shooting the ball real nice," said Victorino, who served for the match point, which Mantua was unable to return.
After a no sweat first set, Victorino and Arcilla appeared to have weakened their resolve in the second set as Ruel and Mantua fought them tooth and nail.
Arcilla and Victorino recovered in the fifth, with Mantua serving. The country's top two seeds fought back to gain the advantage. But their opponents also rallied back in the battle that lasted for almost 20 minutes and prevailed.
"I thought we will get that, pero lumaban sila," said Arcilla.
But the seventh proved to be the turning point, with Ruel serving. Arcilla and Victorino rallied from 0-30 to even up. That included an Arcilla shot, which hit the net, then miraculously dropped on the other side of the court.
"That was crucial. That was the shot that made the game for us," said Arcilla who redeemed himself after losing to Abadia in the quarterfinals when he suffered from crumps.
"That was a bitter lesson. After the break, I practiced less then the Baguio open came and I just bussed here to play," admitted the 24-year old Arcilla.
Then Mantua double faulted to give Arcilla and Victorino the game and a 3-5 second set score.
But Mantua and Ruel had more fight in them as they cruised to a relatively eight game, a love set win to cut the lead to 4-5. Victorino served.
With the match almost on the horizon, however, Mantua and Ruel zoomed to a comfortable 40-15 lead, after the back-to-back errors of Arcilla and Victorino.
But that was that as Arcilla made a drop shot on the return of Mantua to cut the deficit to 30-40. Mantua committed another error when his return was short for the deuce. Ruel then gave the advantage when the ball hit his shaft on a vicious Arcilla return.
Serving for the match point, Victorino served one of his fastest ball which Ruel failed to return. (Pigeon Lobien)
(December 18, 2004 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
|
