Sreynoch keeps local interest alive at Juniors
CAMBODIA’S competitive interest in the ongoing ITF Junior tennis tournament has been confined to Ho Sreynoch’s appearance in the girls doubles draw today after the exit of eight boys from the week end qualifiers at the National Tennis Center.
Tep Timothy, Khleang Ponlok and Chheang Vannasak won their firstround qualifying matches before going down in the second.
Even as five local players found themselves at the deep end, Timothy got past Brandon Suryana of Indonesia 6-3, 6-4, while Vannasak put out Ratchanon Sutsaart of Thailand 6-0, 6-2. Punlok blanked Joe Chong ZhaoJo of Malaysia 6-0, 6-0.
But their winning form did not hold in the second round. Ponlok lost to Nathipat Mulada of Thailand 0-6,1-6, Timothy was beaten 1-6, 2-6 by Pawit Sornlaksup of Thailand and Vannasak went down 2-6,2-6 to Cameron Austin Chang of USA.
The top-seeded players for the main draw starting today are Chang-Lin Tsai of Taipei for the boys, and Supapitch Kuearum of Thailand for the girls.
Tsai, who played in Phnom Penh earlier this year, was a finalist in the first event but lost to Jaewoo KIM of Korea. He is coming in ranked 392 on the ITF Juniors list
Supapitch has been ranked 306 in the girls ITF Juniors rankings.
A returnee of note is Charmaine Seah from Singapore, who won Cambodia’s first ever ITF Juniors last year in October.
She is coming in as the fourth seeded player in this event.
Sreynoch, currently the only ranked Cambodian junior at 2,559, will be playing in the doubles draw.
Tep Timothy and Khleang Ponlok will join together for the Boy’s doubles on Tuesday afternoon.
Chheang Vannasith will partner the opponent he defeated in the qualifying yesterday, Ratchanon Sutsaart of Thailand.