MANILA — Filipino netter Michael Francis Eala will be up against fifth seed Japanese Shunsuke Mitsui in the second leg of the Hyogo International Junior Tennis Championships, which kicks off in Japan on Wednesday.
Eala is the only Filipino taking part in the competition, according to the tournament drawsheet in the International Tennis Federation Juniors website.
The other foreign players in the boys’ singles main draw are unseeded Bohua Dong and No. 7 Pengyu Lu of China, and No. 6 Tsai Chang-Lin of Chinese Taipei.
Dong will meet Japanese Taisei Kageyama; Lu will tackle Japanese Taiyo Hirano; and Tsai will battle Japanese Yamato Sueoka.
Meanwhile, tournament top seed and World No. 118 Seita Watanabe is also scheduled to play Wednesday against Ryotaro Koshiba.
Watanabe has won two singles titles this year, including the first leg of the Hyogo tournament last week.
Other matches will pit No. 2 Ryuya Ata against Ryota Fujibayashi, No. 3 Hikaru Shiraishi against Ren Takaba, No. 4 Kai Kawano against Takeru Sasaki, and No. 8 Hiroki Sakagawa against wild card Hiromu Yokota.
In the girls’ singles division, top seed Himeno Sakatsuke will take on American wild card Jennifer Kida, while second seed Chinese Che Yujiao will face Japanese Ai Yamaguchi. (PNA)
