Patrombon begins Israel campaign, clips French foe

ACE netter Jeson Patrombon stunned Yannick Jankovits of France, 6-3, 6-4, to start his bid on a bright note in the $10,000 Israel Futures 1 being held at the Sport Hotel Club in Northern Beach Eilat, Israel.

The victory sets him up a secondround encounter against the winner between second seed Ruan Roelofse of South Africa and qualifier Maxim Dubarenco of Moldova.

“Jankovits is very aggressive but also consistent from the baseline. My instruction to Jeson was not to back off and to stay close and tight to the baseline when hitting his ground strokes because he cannot afford to be defensive and too far back from the baseline against Jankovits,” coach Manny Tecson narrated.

Patrombon made it a double celebration after he and FilipinoItalian partner Marc Reyes also cruised into the second round of the tournament sanctioned by the International Tennis Federation.

Patrombon and Reyes survived the late comeback of Dekel Bar and Aviv Ben Shabat of Israel en route to a 6-1, 7-5 victory.

They will next meet the secondranked pair of Gleb Sakharov of France and Mike Vermeer of Luxembourg, a 6-2, 7-6 (4) winner over the Swiss tandem of Claude Benz and Luca Margaroli.

“This was indeed a good win and a good start of the year for us. This tournament in Israel is tough and we are the only Asians in the draw, majority of the players are from Europe,” added Tecson.