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AUSTRALIANS John Patrick Smith and Stephen Donald
scored easy wins while four seeds made their exits Wednesday in the
second round of the 18th Mitsubishi Lancer International
Championships at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center hard court.
The top-seeded Smith, ranked No.
17 in the ITF Juniors, downed Filipino qualifier Raymond Villarete,
6-3, 6-2, to advance in the third round against No. 16 Indian Yuki
Bhambri, a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Hong Kong’s Kevin Kung.
Second-seeded and world’s No.
21 Donald breezed past Filipino wild card Christian Canlas, 6-1,
6-0, to advance against No. 15 Japanese Tadayuki Longhi, who
prevailed over New Zealand’s Sam Gould, 6-4, 6-3.
Other winners were third seed
Taiwanese Hsien Ying Peng over New Zealand’s Sebastian Lavie, 6-0,
6-0, and fourth seed Thai Kittipong Wachiramanowong over Austrian
Manuel Proell, 6-4, 6-2.
The four seeds who were
eliminated were No. 5 Perakiat Siriluethaiwattana of Thailand, No. 9
Evgeny Donsky of Russia and No. 10 Brendan McKenzie and No. 11 Jared
Easton, both from Australia.
Siriluethaiwattana lost to Milos
Sekulic of Sweden, 4-6, 2-6, Donsky fell to Taiwanese Tsung Hua
Yang, 1-6, 5-7, McKenzie succumbed to Slovakian Borut Puc, 3-6, 3-6,
and Easton bowed to Silvio Dadic of Croatia, 2-6, 6-3, 1-6.
“It was a good match,” said
the 18-year-old Smith after beating Villarete in 65 minutes.
“I haven’t played Bhambri
before and I don’t know what to expect. But I want to be
optimistic,” said Smith, who reached the quarterfinals in this
year’s Australian Open Juniors.
Playing in his final year in the
juniors and with his current world ranking, the left-hander from
Queensland is more than determined to win this year’s title after
losing in the round-of-16 last year.
“I hope to do good this
year,” said Smith, who won the singles and doubles titles in the
Salon Pas International Juniors, a Group 2 tournament held in
Indonesia early this month.
Last week he won the singles
title in the Group 1 Chief Ministers Cup ITF World Juniors
Championships in Malaysia.
“So far, I’m happy with the
way I’m playing and this year being my last in the juniors, I’ll
do my best to perform well in all my tournaments,” said Smith,
whose other interests are golf and water polo.
Last year Smith played in the
Wimbledon and French Open Juniors and had stints in Italy, Belgium,
Germany and Fiji.
--Emil Noguera
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