FILATA honors tourney winners

After torrential rains, browns outs, and a sputtering of not so friendly confrontations on the tennis courts, the Filipino-American Tennis Association finally held its 2004 Shell-Telesource Open awards banquet Saturday night at the American Memorial Park.

FILATA president Eli Buenaventura kicked off the program by thanking main sponsors Shell Marianas and Telescource CNMI for bankrolling the tournament.

“I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to Shell and Telesource for making the past three weeks possible,” he said.

The general manager of Calvo’s Insurance also announced that the 2004 Shell Telesource Open would be FILATA’s second and last tournament of the year.

He said the AMP will be renovating the facility and, according to Park Ranger Chuck Sayon, all four tennis courts will be refurbished and two new ones constructed during the next few months.

Shell retail area manager Jeff Boyer and Telesource comptroller Raul Purification also took their turn on the microphone. Boyer said that as always Shell is proud to have been a part of the tennis tournament and would continue to support FILATA in the future.

Purification, for his part, congratulated all the winners, and in jest told the losers, “to practice more.” He also said that a measure of a sportsman—or an individual for that matter—is not “whether you win or lose, but rather it’s how you play the game.”

Boyer and Purification would later both receive plaques of appreciation from FILATA thanking them for sponsoring this year’s edition of the Shell-Telesource Open.

The two also gave Buenaventura a hand in giving away championship and runner-up trophies for the tournament’s 11 first place and 11 second place finishers.

Father Ryan Jimenez and Jun Villanueva turned out to be the most “bemedaled” players of the tournament with three trophies each.

Jimenez won a championship in the men’s 3.0 doubles with Michael Robert and then lost to Robert in the finals of the men’s 3.0 singles. He also collected a runner-up trophy in mixed doubles 4.0 while partnering with Sally Cacdac.

Villanueva, for his part, won first place in three categories: men’s open doubles with Lito Cabrera, men’s 4.5 with Ji Hoon Heo, and mixed open doubles with Young Son.

Letty Jones was the top winner for the women taking home two trophies. Jones teamed up with Son to win the championship of the women’s open. She also bagged second place in mixed open doubles after pairing with Buenaventura.

Robert, Buenaventura, and Buenaventura’s son Ralph also won two trophies each. Robert finished first in both the men’s doubles and men’s singles 3.0, the elder Buenaventura had two runner-up finishes (mixed open doubles and men’s open doubles), while Ralph took the championship of the men’s 4.5 and partnered with dad for the aforementioned runner-up finish in the men’s open doubles.

Other winners of the 2004 Shell-Telesource Open were Dr. Gary Ramsey and Dr. Richard Brostrom (men’s 3.0 doubles runners-up), Hector Gutierrez and Buboy Sergio (men’s 4.0 doubles champions), Dodong Espanola and Eric Mahinay (men’s 4.0 doubles runners-up), Dino Jones and Roy Pangelinan (men’s 4.5 doubles runners-up), Kazumi Imai and Yuko Kobayashi (women’s open doubles runners-up), Merle Hudkins and Buddy Garote (mixed 4.0 doubles champions), Craig Buboltz (men’s singles 4.0 champion), Nanding Cajigan (men’s singles 4.5 runner-up), Jeff Race (men’s open singles champion), and Daniel Son (men’s open singles runner-up).