MANILA,Philippines - Casey Alcantara faces Indonesia No. 1 Christopher Rungkat while Fil-Am Treat Huey battles No. 2 Elbert Sie in the opening singles matches of the Asia-Oceania Zone Davis Cup tie in Jakarta today.
The Filipinos hope to hurdle the Indonesians in a bid to regain the country’s place in Group I with Alcantara upbeat of his chances against Rungkat in their 11 a.m. encounter before Huey and Sie collide in the second singles.
Phl Davis Cup administrator Randy Villanueva said the Indonesians were a little bit surprised with the match-ups.
“The Indonesians looked a bit surprised to see that Treat Huey is the number one player that came out from the draw for the Philippines in singles,” said Villanueva in an e-mail message.
“All the while they know that Treat is now unranked in singles and there are two other players higher ranked than Treat in singles.
“They expected Rungkat to play with Treat on the first day and the only way for us to avoid that is to play Alcantara in singles in the first day and he is a good choice also because Francis Alcantara is no pushover in singles,” he added.
The doubles match is set tomorrow that will pit Ruben Gonzales and Jeson Patrombon against Rungkat and Sie.
But Huey or Alcantara or both can be inserted into the Phl line up with teams allowed to make changes an hour before the scheduled match.
“If you are playing an away game with a team as strong as the Indonesians, it’s very important to score in the first day and the draw that came out is the best chance we have to score on the first day, this is the reason why we put Alcantara in the first day, so that Treat can avoid Rungkat and score vs Elbert Sie,” said Phl team manager and sponsor Jean Henri Lhuillier.