Petecio, Villegas to set foot in Roland Garros

PARIS — From the North Paris Arena, boxing competition moves over to Roland Garros – the home of the French Open – for the medal bouts.

And two brave lady fighters in Aira Villegas and Nesthy Petecio are to set foot in the iconic Paris venue, pursuing their dreams and helping sustain the searing drive for greater success by Team Philippines.

Villegas will be the first to see and have her warmups in the lockers Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer have called their own.

The Tacloban pug fights Turkish Buse Naz Cakiroglu in a 50kg semifinal bout around 10 p.m. here Tuesday (4 a.m. Wednesday in Manila), with the winner advancing to the gold-medal fight either opposite Wu Yu of China or Kazakh Nazym Kyzaibay.

Then Petecio takes her turn for a Roland Garros gig Wednesday night in Paris, duking it out with Poland’s Julia Szeremeta in a 57kg semis showdown.

In the other side of the semis are top seed Chinese Taipei’s Lin Yu-ting, embroiled in a gender controversy, and Turkey’s Esra Yildiz Kahraman.

Olympic neophyte Villegas tries to bring her Cinderella ride all the way to the fight for the gold as Petecio goes for a second Olympic final where she hopes to finally land on top.

The prospect of Philippine victory celebration in the hallowed grounds of Garros looks bright.

Recent modernization of the facilities – namely the addition of a roof to Court Philippe-Chatrier – has made hosting of Olympic boxing possible.

Earlier, Garros was a familiar territory for tennis – the Olympic tennis competition where Djokovic took the men’s singles crown to complete an extra special grand slam.