At A Glance
- Francis Casey Alcantara and his Thai partner Pruchya Isaro overcame a sluggish second set and pulled off a hard-earned 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 win over Timofey Skatov and Alexey Zakharov to advance to the quarterfinal round of the ATP Challenger Chennai Open in India Wednesday, Feb. 5.
Francis Casey Alcantara and his Thai partner Pruchya Isaro overcame a sluggish second set and pulled off a hard-earned 6-3, 4-6, 10-7 win over Timofey Skatov and Alexey Zakharov to advance to the quarterfinal round of the ATP Challenger Chennai Open in India Wednesday, Feb. 5.
Coming in as the fourth seeded pair, Alcantara and Pruchya displayed poise in the third game where they dropped strong hits and had a superb defense which helped them pad the lead to 8-2 and enough to withstand the last-ditch efforts of their rivals.
The Filipino-Thai duo will face Japan’s Shintaro Mochizuki and Kaito Uesugi in the quarters of the competition which has a $160,000 (around P9.3 million) prize pool.
Before facing Alcantara and Pruchya, the Japanese netters flexed their might in the opening round, dominating Swiss Luca Castelnuovo and Ukrainian Eric Vanshelbolm, 6-4, 6-0.
Alcantara and Isaro encountered little resistance in the first set and immediately jumped to a 3-0 lead.
Just when things were looking good for the pair, Skatov and Zakharov regained their consciousness and took a 5-2 breakaway to level the contest at 1-1.
But it was their last attempt as Alcantara and Isaro stayed calm and collected to dictate the third game by building a sizable 8-2 lead and never looked back to get the victory.