Castilo, Vivas seek B Bonanza repeat ‘double’

MANILA, Philippines - Gelita Castilo and Paul Vivas set out for a reprise of their “double” feats last year with the former seeking defense of her singles crown and the latter out to duplicate his victories in the doubles and mixed doubles in the P1.5 million Bingo Bonanza National Open badminton tournament unfolding tomorrow at the Rizal Memorial Badminton Hall.

Castilo is actually giving up her women’s doubles plum she won with Malvinne Alcala but the UP ace will see action in the mixed doubles in tandem with fancied Marky Alcala, making them a worthy rival to defending champion Vivas and Christine Inlayo and the rest of the 32 -team cast.

Meanwhile, the preliminaries will be held Monday to Wednesday at the Rizal Memorial with action shifting to the Glorietta 5 Atrium for the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, according to the organizing EventKing Corp.

Vivas, one of the mainstays of PBA-Smash Pilipinas, is teaming up again with Peter Magnaye, hopeful of scoring a repeat in the men’s doubles over a field headed by last year’s runners-up Joper Escueta and Ronel Estanislao, No. 3 Carlos Cayanan and Paul Pantig and fourth- ranked Gerald Gonzales and Joshua Monterubio, all members of PBA-Smash.

Vivas is also seeing action in the men’s singles of the top-ranking event sponsored by Bingo Bonanza and sanctioned by the Philippine Badminton Association.

But Castilo, who upended Sarah Barredo to snare the centerpiece Open singles diadem, will be hard-pressed to score a repeat given the depth of the competing field, led by top seed Pauline Tan of Maynilad, Airah Albo of PBA-Smash, Tricia Pomar, Rose and Beverly Lagnada of FEU-Equiparco-BBC, Danica Bolos of Victor-PCOME and the second-seeded Barredo.