MANILA — After a successful campaign in Sri Lanka, Matthew Anton Garcia is scheduled to compete in Vanuatu and Indonesia this month.
Garcia, who is No. 991 in the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Juniors rankings, will join the Vanuatu Junior International Open which will be held from October 15 to 19 at the Vanuatu Port-Vila outdoor hard court.
From Vanuatu, Garcia will proceed to Indonesia for the Widjojo Soejono MNC Group Pelindo III tournament slated October 16 to 21 at the Brawijaya Tennis Center in Surabaya, the capital of East Java province.
Garcia and his partner Tanapatt Nirundorn of Thailand won back-to-back doubles titles at the Sri Lanka International Tennis Federation (ITF) Junior Circuit in Colombo last month.
The Filipino-Thai tandem defeated Subash Paramasivam of India and Arjun Sriram of United States, 6-2, 6-1, in the first leg and went on to claim the second leg title over Hyeong Jin Kim and Sunwoo Kim of South Korea, 6-0, 6-4.
“I’m so happy to win my first ITF title yet alone two titles back to back,” said Garcia, a 10th grade student at the Brent International School.
Garcia has debuted in the ITF Junior Circuit last year, reaching the doubles quarterfinals with Japanese Tsubasa Koga at the Canberra Junior International in September.
The 5-foot-7 Garcia is the son of former national player and sports reporter Dyan Castillejo. He is training under coach Marc Reyes for two years now.
Garcia’s first tournament this year was in Hong Kong. After that, he also competed in Cambodia, Malaysia, Guam, New Caledonia and Singapore. (Jean Malanum/ PNA)
