Alcantara, Wong make Indonesia quarterfinals

No. 3 seeds Francis Casey Alcantara of the Philippines and Coleman Wong of Hong Kong won their first-round men’s doubles match at the Medco Energi International Tennis Championships Week 1 on Thursday at the Sultan Hotel’s outdoor hard court in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Alcantara and Wong won 6-2, 6-1 over Mitsuki Wei Kang Leong of Malaysia and Linh Giang Trinh of Vietnam to advance to the quarterfinals of the USD25,000 tournament.

Nam Hoang Ly and Minh Tuan Pham of Vietnam, who defeated M Rifqi Fitriadi and Gunawan Giang Trismawantara 6-4, 6-4, are their next opponents.

Thomas Fancutt and Brandon Walkin, both of Australia, advanced to the next round by defeating Thomas Pavlekovich Smith and Matthew Woerndle, 6-2, 7-6. (6).

Fancutt and Walkin will compete against South Korea’s Ulsung Park and Ji Hoon Son, who defeated Ren Nakamura of Japan and Sharmil Shah of India 6-2, 6-2.

In other matches, the No. 2 seeds Fajing Sun of China and Seita Watanabe of Japan, as well as the No. 4 seeds Nathan Anthony Barki and Christopher Rungkat of Indonesia, won in contrasting fashion to advance to the quarterfinals.

Sun and Watanabe defeated Lucky Candra Kurniawan and Tega Abdi Satria Wibowo of Indonesia 6-1, 6-1.

They will play Thailand’s Congsup Congcar and France’s Arthur Weber, who defeated Indonesia’s Arynkgo Mesakh and Aditya Hari Sasongko 6-2, 6-1.

Barki and Rungkat defeated Krittin Koaykul and Jirat Navasirisomboon 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) in order to proceed against Thailand’s Yuttana Charoenphon and Kasidit Samrej.

Japan’s Tomohiro Masabayashi and Renta Tokuda were defeated by Charoenphon and Samrej, 2-6, 6-3, 11-9.

The October 24 edition of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings places Alcantara at No. 286. His career-high position was 257 in 2018.

Three weeks ago, the 30-year-old player from Cagayan de Oro City won his third doubles match alongside Pruchya Isaro of Thailand during Week 1 of the Hai Dang Cup in Tay Ninh City, Vietnam. This year, he also won the Hai Dang Cup Week 2 with Nam Hoang Ly and the ITF World Tennis Tour event in Cairo, Egypt with Northern Marianas Islander Colin Sinclair.

Alcantara and Rungkat placed second in two $50,000 ATP Tour Challenger events in Nonthaburi City, Thailand, last month. They reached the semifinals of the USD10,000 Hong Kong-based 2016 ITF Futures 2 event.

Next year, Alcantara will likely captain the Philippine tennis squad at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Cambodia and the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

At the 2019 SEA Games in Manila, he and Jeson Patrombon won the doubles championship.

In 2005, Alcantara was selected to the Davis Cup team. In 2009, he became the first Filipino junior to win a Grand Slam when he and Cheng-Peng Hsieh of Chinese Taipei won the Australian Open doubles title. In the same year, he reached his greatest ranking of No. 14 in the world.