Francis Casey Alcantara of the Philippines clinched his second International Tennis Federation (ITF) doubles title of the year, this time teaming up with Vietnamese Nam Hoang Ly, at the M15 Tay Ninh tournament in Vietnam on Saturday.

Alcantara, the 2022 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games men’s doubles silver medalist, and reigning SEA Games singles gold medalist Ly overwhelmed South Koreans Uisung Park and Ji Hoon Son, 6-3, 6-1, at the Hai Dang Tennis Club’s Center Court.

In April, the 30-year-old Alcantara won the M25 Cairo doubles title with Colin Sinclair of Northern Mariana Islands after being a doubles finalist thrice in Egypt this season.

Alcantara and Ly began the final with a commanding 4-0 lead, courtesy of a backhand cross-court winner by Alcantara, the 2009 Australian Open boys’ doubles champion.

In fact, they were down 15-40 in the fourth game, but forced it to deuce with a forehand passing shot winner by Ly.

After extending their lead to 5-0, they lost the next three games as Park and Son upped their play and saved four set points to trail at 3-5.

Serving for the first set for the second time, Alcantara and Ly earned four more set points but had to work hard to claim the opening set, 6-3, on their seventh set point.

The Filipino-Vietnamese tandem asserted their dominance in the second set with a 4-1 edge, brought about by a backhand volley winner from Alcantara.

In the sixth game, they held serve, 5-1, after Ly fired a powerful serve and Alcantara hit a forehand volley winner in response to the return of serve.

They got two match points in the following game, thanks to a forehand volley winner by Alcantara, also a men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2019 SEA Games.

Park and Son saved a match point with a backhand down-the-line passing shot, but yielded the match with a backhand error, 1-6.

In the first round, Alcantara and Ly eliminated Vietnamese wildcards Quoc-Khanh Le and Phuong Van Nguyen, 6-3, 6-3.

They overcame the Japanese duo of Shohei Chikami and Masamichi Imamura in the quarterfinals, 4-6, 6-2, 10-7, and defeated Vietnamese Minh Tuan Pham and Link Giang Trinh in the semifinals, 6-3, 6-4.

In the singles draw, 25-year-old Ly, the No. 1 seed, will battle it out for the title on Sunday against No. 4 seed Dominik Palan of Czech Republic.

Other Filipinos who competed in the M15 Tay Ninh tournament were Eric Olivarez, Jr. and Michael Francis “Miko” Eala.

In the qualifying draw, Olivarez was ousted in the first round by No. 14 seed Jimmy Yang of Germany while Eala, a wild card recipient, was beaten in the second round by No. 7 seed Suraj R Prabodh of India.

• SEA Games: PH assured of gold, silver in men’s doubles tennis
• Tennis: Alcantara, Sinclair win M25 Cairo doubles title

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