Big guns reach Palawan Open final

MANILA, Philippines — Heavy favorites Casey Alcantara and Christopher Papa lived up to their billing to thwart AJ Lim and Ronard Joven, 6-4, 6-3, and book their ticket to the men’s doubles finals in the Palawan Open 2026 at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center Thursday.

The top-seeded duo will battle the fourth-ranked tandem of Nilo Ledama and Eric Jed Olivarez for the coveted crown and the P150,000 top purse.

Alcantara, a seasoned doubles specialist, and his American partner Papa endured a grueling, hold-for-hold battle against Lim and Joven through the first eight games of the opening set. In the second, they broke their opponents in the seventh game, held serve in the eighth, and broke once more in the ninth to seal the straight-set victory.

While Alcantara and Papa relied on late-set heroics, Ledama and Olivarez punched their finals ticket in dominant fashion, dismantling the unranked pairing of Eric Tangub and Richard Bautista, 6-3, 6-1, in challenging court conditions.

The defeat ended a gritty, giant-killing run for Tangub and Bautista, who had previously stunned the second-seeded Indian tandem of Parth Aggarwal and Digvijay Singh in a marathon second-round thriller (6-3, 4-6, 11-9).