17 pairs join PIC tennis tourney

Seventeen pairs are competing in the doubles events in the opening week of 15th PIC Tennis Championships that will be held at the Pacific Islands Club hard courts.

Colin Ramsey, seen here returning a shot to Luther Lizama in their boys U18 title game in last month’s Coconut Tennis Classic at the AMP tennis courts, will team up with the latter as they bid for the men’s open doubles crown in this weekend’s PIC tennis tournament.
(Roselyn B. Monroyo)

The men’s open doubles event has an interesting field with coaches Luke Beling and Jeff Race, who once teamed up in a separate local competition, taking different partners for this weekend’s tournament. Beling is joining forces with Peter Loken and the duo drew a bye in the first round, automatically advancing to the semifinals. They will face in the semis the winner between the Friday match of junior players Robbie Schorr and Tony Kim and adult netters Bobby Cruz and Raj Rai.

Race has Tommy Choi as partner and they will duel the junior player tandem of Luther Lizama and Colin Ramsey for the other semis match this Saturday at 11:30am. The finals of the men’s open doubles will be played this Sunday ay 2pm.

Meanwhile, four other doubles events are scheduled in Week 1 of the two-weekend tournament.

In the men’s 4.0 doubles, only three pairs are contesting the championship. The duo of Donn Dunlop and Nicky Nichols is one of them, and the tandems of Raj Rai and Dong Min Lee and Keisuke Takagi and Reo Arriola complete the short list. The three pairs will play in a round-robin format with the team to have the most wins getting the division championship.

In the men’s 3.0 doubles, the father-and-son team of Eric and Joshua Abragan will contest the championship against the PIC’s very own Dennis Tababa and Glenn Policare at 11:30am this Sunday.

The women’s 3.0 doubles also has only two entries with Chiharo Sato and Sakiko Eda dueling the tandem of Vickie Izuka and Mayling Colombo.

In the women’s open doubles, six teams will battle for the championship. The pair of Mikayla Lopez and Negahr Rastguiy is on the top of the draw and got a bye in the first round. They marched into the semifinals outright and will face in the Final Four the victor of the match between the tandems of Marivic Rosario and Tisha Ferrer and Lydia Tan and Sally Lee. The other semis pairing will have mother and daughter Eun Kyoung and Carol Lee challenging junior players Tania Tan and Malika Miyawaki. The finals of the women’s open doubles is scheduled this Sunday 10am.

Besides the doubles events, the juniors singles will also take place this weekend, while the adults singles and juniors doubles will be played next weekend.