Saturday, February 03, 2007 Barte moves into 3rd round in Bangladesh Junior Netfest By Marianne L. Saberon-Abalayan
DAVAO City's former Palarong Pambansa champion Ralph Kevin Barte ousted Indian Tilwari Palash, 6-4, 6-3, to enter the boys singles third round of the Rajshahi International Junior Tennis Championships 2007 at the Zafar Iman Tennis Complex in Bangladesh Friday.
Barte, the seventh-seed who bagged the doubles crown in the BKSP International Juniors Championships last week, will play against Japanese Toshiya Suzuki in his next assignment.
No. 9 Suzuki booted out Bangladeshi Itrat Hamid, 6-1, 6-0, in the International Tennis Federation (ITF)-recognized event.
Top-seed Hsien-Yin Peng of Chinese Taipei overwhelmed Sameer Paranjape of India, 6-3, 6-0, while No. 2 Damian Hume of Russia survived a 7-5, 7-5 triumph over Phaninthon Pakpoomkamol of Thailand.
No. 3 Hsu-Chun Huang of Chinese Taipei, who was Barte's partner in the BKSP Juniors titular victory, walloped Indian netter Agnel Gladwin, 6-0, 6-1.
Russian Juan De Villers, Christopher Marquis, Venkat Iyer, Jeong-Han Seo, Sudanwa Sitaram, Abhijeet Tiwari, Dean O'Brien, Carl Kuschke, Ranjan Ram, I-Ta Chen and Jae-Beom Kim also advanced in the Grade 3 event competition.
Barte also competed in the Hong Kong International Junior Championships two weeks ago but failed to win the title. He is yet to see action in another tournament in Bangladesh after the Rajshahi meet.
