MANILA, Philippines - Fil-Am Treat Conrad Huey and Dominic Inglot of Great Britain needed a huge third set performance to trounce Andreas Seppi and Potito Starace of Italy, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-1, to advance to the third round in the doubles of the Australian Open yesterday.
The 12th-seeded Huey and Inglot, who have long surpassed their first round appearance in last year’s edition of this Grand Slam event, forged a re-match against former tormentors Aisam-ul-haq Querishi of Pakistan and Rohan Bopanna of India, who downed Ross Hutchins and Colin Fleming of Great Britain, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Huey and Inglot hope to avenge their 6-7 (3), 7-6 (5) and 10-3 defeat to the seventh-ranked Qureshi and Bopanna in the Apai International in Sydney, Australia a couple of weeks back.
In mixed doubles, Huey, the Phl’s No. 1 netter and spearhead of the country’s Davis Cup team in international campaigns, will team up with the US’ Raquel Kops-Jones as they tackle No. 2 Bopanna and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia in the opening round.
Huey and Inglot opened their campaign by downing the Colombian pair of Robert Farah and Juan Sebastian Cabal, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, two days back.
Huey, the country’s top netter and veteran of the Davis Cup, and Inglot are hoping to do better in this Grand Slam event to gain ranking points and improve on their current world doubles rankings of Nos. 22 and 28, respectively.