Junior netters Pantino, Eala to compete in Sarawak tourney

FILE Photo (Photo: Alosh Bennett/ Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

MANILA — Arthur Craig Pantino and Michael Francis Eala will see action in the 30th Chief Minister’s Cup, a Group 3 juniors tournament to be held at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association Centre in Malaysia on October 10-15.

According to the ITF Juniors website on Tuesday, Pantino will meet Indonesian Muhammad Althaf Dhaifullah while Eala will face Swedish qualifier Mans Stapel in the first round.

Malaysian Christian Didier, currently the world’s No. 83 junior player, is the No. 1 seed in the boys’ singles category.

He has won two singles and three doubles titles this year.

The other seeds are No. 2 Seita Watanabe of Japan, No. 3 Digvijay Prattep Singh, No. 4 Megh Bhargav Patel and No. 10 Karan Srivastava of India, No. 5 Campbell Salmon and No. 7 Rinky Hijikata of Australia, No. 9 Yu Hua-Chen and No. 16 Lin Han-Chih of Chinese Taipei, No. 9 Yu Bingyu and No. 13 Zhou Xinmu of China, No. 8 Ki Lung Ng of Hong Kong, No. 11 Gerhardt Marius Becker of South Africa, No. 14 Kasidit Samrej of Thailand, and No. 15 Lukas Hellum Lilleengen of Norway.

The two Filipinos also entered the doubles category.

Pantino is paired with Chinese Lu Pengyu while Eala is playing with Malaysian Shairul Shahril Mohd Adam Das.

Pantino is eyeing his second straight doubles title following his triumph at the 1st Perlis ITF Junior Championship last week.

Pantino and Beibit Zhukayev defeated Malaysian pair Christian Didier and Nauful Siddiq Kamaruzzaman, 6-2, 6-1, in the finals. The Cebuano, however, was beaten by Korean Kim Dong-ju, 4-6, 3-6, in the boys’ singles category.