CAGAYAN de Oro City’s Francis Casey Alcantara bowed out of contention on Wednesday, June 21, in the US$ 15,000 F1 Hong Kong Futures men’s singles in Hong Kong.
The 25-year-old Alcantara, seeded no. 5 in the singles tournament, came with an opening round victory against Japan’s Tomohiro Masabayashi, 6-4 and 6-4.
However, in the second round that night, an exhausted Alcantara could no longer resume playing in the deciding set against another Japanese foe Katsuki Nagao.
Alcantara and Nagao went to the third set with the Japanese taking the first set, 6-4 and the Kagay-anon holding his own in the second set, 7-5.
But just as Alcantara enjoyed a 1-0 advantage in the deciding race-to-10 set, he begged off from playing, thus giving Nagao an easy ride to the quarterfinals.
“Gikapoy ko (I am tired already) for playing two successive games that night and the second round was already late so I decided to drop it kay fatigue na,” said Alcantara via Facebook chat.
But, Alcantara is still in strong contention with his Indian partner Karunuday Singh in the doubles event as they moved to the quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, the 20-year-old and Dave Sebastian Mosqueda, a mainstay of the University of Santo Tomas varsity team, yielded to the more experienced Chinese netter Yecong He in the first round, 1-6 and 1-6.