Pantino rules battle of seeds

MANILA,Philippines — Top seed Arthur Craig Pantino beat another Filipino seed, Jose Antonio Tria, in their championship showdown at the 2019 Phinma-PSC International Juniors tennis tournament, 6-3, 6-2, last Sunday at the Manila Polo Club.

Currently ranked 89th under his category, Pantino, the country’s top junior player, easily made his way to the championship round as he crushed his opponents during the qualifying and elimination rounds.

Pantino, born and raised in Ormoc City, Leyte, first held a racket as early as five years old.  With this victory, he has collected his third international singles championship.

In the girls’ division singles category, You Chin Tsai, the top seed from Taipei, triumphed over Yuxuan Yang of China, 6-4, 2-6.

Yang, with her doubles partner Qingyang Zhang, landed second in the doubles category, failing to defeat Zijun Jiang and Xiaoyan Xue, 6-0, 6-3, in the finals.

The doubles tandem of Jeroen Boer and Wen-yi Chou, both non-seeded players, ruled the boys doubles when they outplayed fourth seeds You Shiang Huang and Cheng Tang from Taipei.

The event is organized by Phinma and the Philippine Sports Commission, and sanctioned by the International Tennis Federation and Philippine Tennis Association.