BETS from Cebu and its neighboring islands led the winners in the recent Cebuana Lhuillier Age Group Tennis Championship Series leg in Talibon, Bohol as they took four of the nine individual titles at stake.
Tiffany Claire Nocos from Lapu-Lapu City won two, while multi-titled Marc Nicole Suson and Aaron Kevin Tabura won one crown each.
Nocos ruled both the girls’ 14-under and 16-under age groups in the well-attended leg that drew 111 entries, beating Corazon Lambunao from Ormoc, Leyte, 6-2, 6-0, in the finals of the 14-under and followed it up with a three-set victory, 6-2, 6-7, 10-7 over Cebu’s Ashley McKenzie in the 16-under championship match.
Nocos also teamed up with Kimberley McKenzie and edged out Shedel Gica and Ellaine Rose Bahonsua, 8-7, in the finals of the girls’ 18-under doubles.
Suson made it back to back following his triumph in the Coron leg earlier as he beat Dipolog City bet Stephen Zion Guia, 6-2, 6-0, in the boys’ 18-under, while Aaron Kevin Tabura set the tone for Cebu by ruling the 10-under unisex group, where he prevailed over Daveaine Therese Gauran from Negros Oriental, 4-0, 4-2 in the finals of the event also supported by Dunlop as the official ball.
“Cebu has been a long-time power in sports in the Visayas and right now, the province is showing the way in tennis in the region,” said Jean Henri Lhuillier, President/CEO of the sponsoring Cebuana Lhuillier Group that has been bank-rolling this grassroots tennis program for the last 12 years.
Boholanos shared in the glory as the duo of John Kenneth Jumamoy from Inabanga and Chryshyll Mykk Lungay from Ubay won their respective age groups, with Jumamoy emerging champion in the boys’ 12-under where he took the measure of another local bet Carl Kenneth Miasco, 7-6, 6-2, in the finals.
Lungay did the same to Miasco, 7-6, 6-0, in the championship match of the boys’ 14-under.
Dipolog City’s pride Guia consoled himself after losing to Suson with his earlier victory in the boys’ 16-under, where he defeated Zamboanga del Sur’s Lex Estillore, 6-1, 6-0, to win the title. Bahonsua, who hails from Siquijor, posted an easy 6-2, 6-2 victory over Cebuana Ashley McKenzie for the girls’ 18-under crown.
Gauran, meanwhile, bounced back from her loss to Tabura in the 10-under and won over Angel Carile Sabandal, 6-3, 6-0, in the girls’ 12- under.