Sunday, March 13, 2011

...the tennis ladies

Patrimonio, Mendoza win titles in Brunei


By Ronnie Nathanielsz
Philippine Daily Inquirer



MANILA, Philippiines—Filipinos Clarice Patrimonio and Jurence Mendoza rounded off a big week by each winning a title in the 43rd Brunei ITF Championships in Bandar Seri Begawan on Sunday.

The 17-year-old Patrimonio, daughter of PBA great Alvin Patrimonio and wife, Cindy, secured her second ITF singles title with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over giant-killer Hsu Ching-wen of Chinese-Taipei.

Jurence Mendoza then teamed up with Brian Yeung Pak-long of Hong Kong for a come-from-behind 4-6, 6-2, 10-2 victory over second seeds Ega Uneputty and Indra Wijaya of Indonesia to bag the boys’ doubles crown.

It was the first doubles title for Mendoza and the fourth straight for Yeung in the Asian circuit.

Patrimonio’s coach, Karl Santamaria, said the victory of Clarice, the No. 2 seed, did not reflect the tense struggle in a match that lasted two and a half hours.

Hsu, who had earlier beaten top seed Katherine Ip of Hong Kong and world No. 840-ranked Voni Darlina of Indonesia, engaged Clarice in hard-fought rallies.

The Filipino appeared to get stronger as the match progressed and, with the predominantly Filipino crowd cheering her on, overwhelmed the Taiwanese in the second set, 6-0.

Patrimonio reached the finals via a clinical victory over Chinese Taipei’s Ruan Hui-zhen, 6-1, 6-2.

Patrimonio missed a twin victory as her pairing with Thailand’s Siriporn Phakamad, bowed to Japan’s Mao Nishiguchi and Ayano Sonoda, 6-7, 6-7, in the finals.

No comments:

Post a Comment