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| Photo via IASAS Website. |
By: Kristoffer Ed Bellen
MANILA—Brothers Stephan and Sebastian Lhuillier, sons of tennis patron Jean Henri Lhuillier, led the International School Manila in a vicious sweep to bring home the gold medal in the recently held Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools tennis event, at Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday.
Stephan and Sebastian backed up four-year team captains Marco Ayala and Laurenco Moitino de Almeida to lead Carlos Miguel Angeles, Joaquin Devenecia, Diego Barrientos, and Jahaan Sachdeva to an unblemished record at the three-day scheduled annual tournament participated by various international schools in Southeast Asia.
The Philippine squad stayed perfect in the single-round robin eliminations, winning all five of their matches, before also subjugating the home team of International School Bangkok in the final, 5-0.
Meanwhile, their girls counterpart also delivered a promising performance after bagging the silver medal against the Singapore American School, who was unbeaten entering the championship match.
The team of captain Dani Poblador, Cecilia Ignacio, Justine Lee, Isabelle Poblador, Mariana Po, Bettina Catoto, Miah Sieh, and Nagisa Moriyuki managed to score one win over the Singaporeans and halt their unbeaten streak, but the latter regained momentum as the Filipinos settled for a second place finish, 1-4.
Moriyuki delivered the only win for the Philippines team coached by David Allen, Czarina Arevalo, Kim Cheah, and Jen Saret after dismantling A. Carlisle at the third singles category.
"We had five seniors, so it meant a lot [for them because it's] the lsst school tournament before moving on," coach Allen told WINS in an exclusive online interview.
Asked about their preparations, he said "[we were] playing ISTA matches, training hard, and plsying local universities."
The IASAS is an annual competition among six participating schools across the Southeast Asian region, and was founded in 1982.
Currently, the IASAS organization of six schools organize various sports and arts events including tennis, cross-country, soccer, volleyball, basketball, rugby, swimming, drama, dance, forensics and debate, music and art, model United Nations, and a mathematics competition.
Follow the writer on Twitter: @KristoffBellen.
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