Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Davao's Barte draws first round bye, plays HK bet By Marianne L. Saberon-Abalayan
TOP-seed Ralph Kevin Barte of Davao City drew a bye in the first round of the Hong Kong ITF Junior Tournament 2007 at Victoria Park Tennis Courts, Hing Fat Street Tin Hau Hong Kong, China Monday.
The Davao bet will go up against Hong Kong's Shing-Fung Lui, who also drew a bye in the main draw, in the knockout second round of the six-day netfest recognized by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).
Barte's fellow Filipinos fourth-seed Pablo Olivarez and sixth-seed Joshua Tan Ho also drew byes but compatriot Mark-Jaype Balce was not as lucky as the two after bowing to Young-Sang Byun of Thailand, 5-7, 1-6.
No. 2 Kevin Kung of Hong Kong and teammates No. 14 Chun-Ming Yam, Timothy Lam, No. 16 Ryan Ho, No. 10 Yat-Sing Wong and No. 9 Dino Dell `Orto, No. 11 Kelsey Stevenson of Canada, No. 5 Stephen Hoh of Australia, No. 3 Jui-Chen Jung of Taipei, No. 7 Sorapon Imprapai of Thailand, No. 8 Ang Li of China, No. 13 Sun-Hong Kim of Korea, No. 12 Grittaboon Prahmanee of Thailand, No. 15 James Allemby of Great Britain and Chee-Jun Leong of Singapore also took byes.
In other matches, Abdul-Hakim Jamaluddin of Singapore beat Thai Kasidit Sunthorner, 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, while Chinese Jia Li crushed Hong Kong bet Siu-Fai Kelvin Lam, 6-4, 6-3.
Taipei's Yu-Chou Lin spanked Thai netter Hyun-Chang Park, 6-3, 6-2, Hong Kong's Tyler Leung survived a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 victory over Jun-Yang Tan of Singapore, Indonesian Deerpinder Bains whipped Great Britain's Richard Fay, 6-3, 6-3 and Hong Kong's Darren Ng outclassed Taipei player Chih Chen, 6-4, 6-2.
Barte, who will soon turn 18, will also compete in three ITF tournaments in Bangladesh. He will be gone for one month for his the series of competitions abroad.
He is expected to return to Manila in the second week of February.
