Aussie, HK bet rule junior tennis

Top seed John Patrick Smith of Australia dished out a superb all around game to neutralize the big-hitting Silvio Dadic of Croatia and came away with a 6-4, 6-4 victory and ruled the 18th Mitsubishi Lance ITF Juniors Circuit at the Rizal Tennis Center.

A day after stopping upset-conscious unseeded Slovenian Borut Puc, 6-3, 6-1, in the semifinals, the 18-year-old Smith put away the challenge of Dadic in just about an hour and a half to cop his dominating performance in the Grade I event staking 150 points to the singles champion and 100 to the runner-up.

Eighth pick Zhang Ling of Hong Kong humbled No. 3 Chang Kai-Chen of Chinese Taipei, 6-4, 6-1, to bag the women’s title.

"I was surprised I beat him in straight sets because I was expecting to encounter some problems with his big serves and strokes," said Smith, who never conceded a set in the annual event. -Joey Villar

that produced the likes of former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt of Australia and Andy Roddick of the United States.

The 16-year-old Chang, who booted out Fil-Am Denise Dy in the quarterfinals, seized the tempo early as she took a 2-0 lead after breaking Zhang in the opening game.

But Zhang fought back, holding serve in the third game and breaking Chang in the next to knot the count at 2-all before the latter broke the former again a game later to regain control, 3-2.

Zhang, however, overpowered Chang with her solid baseline to take the opener.

Zhang then came through with rallies in the first two games of the second set en route to the victory.

It was a second straight second place finish for Chang, who teamed up with American Veronica Li in the women’s doubles finals where they lost to Dy and Indon Jessy Rompies, 3-6, 2-6, Saturday.