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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 19) – Filipino tennis star Treat Huey emerged victorious in his return to a Grand Slam doubles tournament on Wednesday.
Huey and Indonesian partner Christopher Rungkat rallied from a set down to defeat the duo of India’s Rohan Bopanna and France’s Edouard Roger-Vasselin, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2), 6-2, in the 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles opening round at Court 5, Melbourne Park.
Bopana and Roger-Vasselin, the 2014 French Open men’s doubles champion, started strong in the first set with a flurry of successful first serves that rattled the Huey-Rungkat pair’s net defense.
Huey and Rungkat, who are good rivals in the Southeast Asian tennis scene, turned things around in the second set with some good winners towards the end of every set.
Bopana and Roger-Vasselin kept on leveling the score of their opponents in the second set as they forced a deciding 13th game, which Huey and Rungkat dominated by forcing errors to the other side.
The Huey-Rungkat duo convincingly sealed the victory in the third set with a dominating service performance to win five straight set games after dropping the first.
It was Huey’s first Grand Slam match since the 2018 Australian Open, where he lost in the first round.
The Filipino-Indonesian pair qualified for this year’s Australian Open as a wildcard.
They will face in the second round the winner between the duo of Kazakhstan’s Andrey Golubev and Croatia’s Franko Skugor and the Australian tandem of Dane Sweeny and Li Tu.
