Gonzales, Cornea win doubles title at Yokohama Keio Challenger

• Published date: 05 November 2022
• Publication title: Philippines News agency

Filipino-American Ruben Gonzales and Romanian Victor Vlad Cornea were crowned doubles champion at the Yokohama Keio Challenger in Japan on Saturday.

Gonzales and Cornea, the tournament third seeds, clinched the title after beating Japanese wild cards Tomoya Fujiwara and Masamichi Imamura, 7-5, 6-3, in the final match at the Keio University's Hiyoshi Campus Mimitani Tennis Court.

"It was a great week for us! We kind of decided to play together last minute so it was amazing to win the tournament," said the world No. 142 Gonzales in an online interview after the match. "This is my third title this year and fourth final".

"We were down match point in the first round, so awesome to go all the way and take the title," added Gonzales, who is based in Terre Haute City in Indiana.

"I will be playing three more weeks with my good friend Christopher Rungkat," said Gonzales, who is scheduled to join the Matsuyama International Open (Nov. 7-13), Kobe Challenger (Nov. 14-20), and Yokkaichi Challenger (Nov. 21-27).

Rungkat, who hails from Indonesia, is currently No. 184 in the world. He won the mixed doubles gold medal with Aldila Sutjiadi at the 2022 Vietnam SEA Games.

On their way to the final, Gonzales and the world No. 126 Cornea scored a 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2) win over Japan's Taisei Ichikawa and Yuki Mochizuki, who ousted No. 1 seeds Arjun Kadhe and Ramkumar Ramanathan of India in the quarterfinal round, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 12-10.

Fujiwara and Imamura, on the other hand, walked over Frederico Ferreira Silva of Portugal and Zdenek Kolar of Czech Republic in the semifinal round.

Silva and Kolar eliminated second seeds Andrew Harris and John Patrick Smith of Australia, 6-3, 4-6, 13-11, in the round of 16 to reach the quarterfinal where they rallied past Shinji Hazawa and Shintaro Mochizuki of Japan, 6-2, 2-6, 12-10.

Meanwhile, Filipino Francis Casey Alcantara and Vietnamese Nam Hoang Ly, the reigning SEA Games singles gold...