Monday, December 11, 2006 Philippine bets booted out of Asian Games tennis tilt By Marian C. Baring Sun.Star Correspondent
THE Filipino netters’ chances for a gold in the 15th Asian Games remains shaky as two of their bets in the women’s division bowed out of contention yesterday after losing to seeded opponents at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.
Denise Dy and Czarina Mae Arevalo both ended their bids in the Round of 16 on a losing note with Dy dropping her match to Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn, who is seeded 5th in the competition, 6-4, 7-5.
Arevalo on the other hand, lost to the 8th-seeded Iroba Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan, 6-1, 6-1.
The two though, are still in the running for the mixed doubles and the women’s doubles event.
Conquest
Another RP pair, Cecil Mamiit and Frederick Taino, took a small step closer towards the elusive tennis gold after a successful conquest over South Korea’s Chung Hee Seok and An Jae Sung, 0-6, 6-3, 7 (7)-6(4) in the men’s double’s event.
The victory of Mamiit and Taino forged a round of 16 showdown against Chinese Taipei.
In track cycling, RP bet Jan Paul Morales wound up in the 7th place in the men’s one-kilometer Time Trial, which was dominated by China, Japan and South Korea, respectively.
Other RP bets are set to see action in other events today.
In wrestling, two representatives of RP entered the quarterfinal rounds before bowing out of the tourney.
Qatar’s Badr Bakhit stopped RP’s Michael Baletin in the quarterfinals of the Greco-Roman 74 kgs. to end the Filipino’s campaign.
After winning in the preliminary over Ali Saleh Al Ayzam of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Margarito Angana, the other half of the RP wrestling team, lost to Iran’s Amiri Jareem in the quarters.
Today, the RP Wushu team will be opening its campaign at the Aspire Hall starting at 3 p.m. The team is composed of Rene Catalan, Mark Eddiva, Eduard Folayang, Kenneth Lim, Rexel Nganhayna, Pedro Quina, Willy Wang and Janice Hung.
The divers also start their hunt for gold today with Sea Games multi-winner Shiela Mae Perez spearheading the RP diving team.
