Dalisay wins Tep Khunnah Memorial Cup
SPAIN-BORN Diego Garcia Dalisay of the Philippines, who emerged as a qualifier last week, completed a remarkable run of success by claiming the boys singles title in the 21st Tep Khunnah Memorial Cup ITF Juniors (Grade 5) at the National Training Center on Saturday.
In a final he dominated end to end, 17-year old right-hander Dalisay outplayed a rival three years younger than him, Takeshi Koey, a wild card from Malaysia, 6-2, 6-1 to record his first tournament triumph
Though Dalisay has an ATP point to his credit, he had to go through the qualifiers since he was unranked as a ju nior. Fol low i ng t his i mpressive v ictor y, he will get into t he ra nking list next week.
It was a tough road to the final for Takeshi who had to overcome three three-set matches before reaching the final. At the end of it all, the only consolation for the Malaysian was the first clutch of Junior ranking points that came his way.
Girls champ
The semifinals on Friday saw the ousting of the top two seeds. Koey shut out the No1 seed Chen Yu Feng of Chinese Taipei 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, while Dalisay accounted for second seed Srivatsa Ratakonda 6-3,6-1,
T he t rophy pre sent at ions were made by Igor Zimarev, t he head of marketing at ABA bank and Goodman Mily, the marketing manager of RMA’s Ford div ision,
Fifth seeded Charmaine Seah of Singapore brought down unseeded Jialin Wei of China 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to lift the girls singles title.
On the way to the final, Seah upset top seed Katie LaFrance of USA 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, while Jialin Wei put out second seed. Risa Fukutoku of Japan 6-3,6-1
Bruno Van, managing director of the Cambodian Country Club, and Chester Tan, the trade marketing manager of Cambrew, presented the trophies to Seah and Wei.
In his concluding remarks, Tep Rithivit, the secretary-general of Tennis Cambodia, underlined the importance of the Tep Khunnah Memorial in the national calendar. He indicated that the federation would stage more ITF Junior tournaments next year.