 |
| PSC commissioners Fritz Gaston and Bong Coo helped award the PWO doubles championship to Eudice Chong and Liang En-Shuo. PHILTA/Philippine Women's Open |
MANILA--Eudice Chong and Liang En-Shuo fought back from the brink of a quick domination of Fil-American Sabrina Santamaria and partner Quinn Gleason and prevailed, 2-6, 7-6 (2), 10-6, to win the doubles championship of the Philippine Women's Open on Friday night at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.
Getting outplayed badly in Set 1, Chong and Liang also started on the wrong foot in Set 2 as Santamaria, born to a Filipino mother from Quezon City, and Gleason were on the verge of another 6-2 to win it all.
"We were a little bit slow off our feet, and we were trying to just make our opponents play a lot of ball," Chong said.
However, adjusting their gameplay in time, Chong and Liang saved two match points and eventually knotted the count at 5-all.
"On their match point, it was a really long point, but we were able to kinda come back from that. I think that was the point where we're able to get a little bit of a turning moment for us," Chong further said.
Santamaria and Gleason took Game 11 to once again move to within one game of clinching the title, but Chong and Liang never wavered and took Game 12 to force the tiebreak, where the tandem from Hong Kong and Chinese Taipei dominated to force the race-to-10 Set 3.
With the momentum on their side, Chong and Liang zoomed to a 7-2 lead, but Santamaria and Gleason had one last gasp and cut the lead to two, 8-6.
In the end, Chong and Liang scored back-to-back points to clinch the title and a US$5,800 (around PHP341,000) top prize.
Santamaria and Gleason, the top seeds in the WTA 125 event, will join Alex Eala in the WTA 500 Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open next week.
Santamaria and Gleason, right after receiving their first runners-up trophies, quickly left for the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay to make the midnight plane flight.
Chong and Liang will travel to Romania afterward for a WTA 250 event there.
