Netters enter next round in doubles

GUANGZHOU – Johnny Arcilla and RJ Gonzales powered past lowly Sri Lanka, 6-1, 6-1, while the enduring partnership of Cecil Mamiit and Conrad Treat Huey advanced without swinging a racket in the first round of doubles play yesterday in the Asian Games tennis competitions at the Aoiti Tennis Center.

Arcilla and Gonzales, playing for the first time in an international competition, combined for six aces and seven service winners to dispense with Fahad Al Saad and Omar Al Thagib to enter the Round of 16.

Mamiit and Huey joined them in the round with a walk-over win over Mongolia’s Erdenebayar Durenbayar and Angarag Sandag in the other half of the draw.

Arcilla and Gonzales will also have a relatively light assignment in India’s SK Devvarman and SK Singh, who drew a bye into the round.

But Mamiit and Arcilla will have a tougher match ahead as they face the Japanese pair of Soeda Go, member of the silver medal-winning team in the Doha Asian Games, and Hiroki Kondo, member of the pair that won the bronze in the East Asian Games last year.

The route to the finals may include a qarterfinal encounter with Chinese Taipeh’s Yi Chu-huan and Lee Hsin-han and a semifinal encounter with second seed China.

Arcilla and Gonzales will go up against the Chinese pair of Bai and Zhang, and if they survive that, they will fight opposite the top seed pair of Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana of Thailand.

A Filipino win all the way to the finals will set up an all-Filipino confrontation for the gold medal.