Francis Casey Alcantara and Ruben Gonzales fell short in their first tournament in over a year after yielding to a more experienced opponent at the ASC BMW Men’s World Tennis Tour in Naples, Florida Wednesday.
The Filipino pair lost steam after a strong start and succumbed to third seed Alejandro Gomez of Colombia and Israel Alexander Ore of the United States, 4-6, 6-1, 10-1.
A victory could have booked them a quarterfinals berth against unseeded Americans Strong Kirchheimer and Dennis Novikov, who downed French tandem Corentin Denolly and Clement Tabur, 3-6, 6-4, 10-4.
This was the first tournament as a pair for both Alcantara and Gonzales after being sidelined for more than a year due to the pandemic. Their last competition was at the Davis Cup tie against Greece last March.
Both Alcantara and Gonzales will try their luck in the second leg of the $25,000 Futures event and will look for more tournaments in the coming weeks.