Patrimonio, Thai enter quarters

MANILA, Philippines - Anna Christine Patrimonio and Thai partner Kamonwan Buayam positioned themselves for a possible shot at the title as they reached the quarterfinals of the PLDT-Smart ITF Women’s Circuit Week 2 doubles event yesterday at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center.

The 18-year-old Patrimonio and Buayam drubbed fellow wild card entries Anna Clarice Patrimonio and Russian Anna Tyulpa, 6-0, 6-4, to advance to the Last 8 against No. 3 Americans Ivana King and Yasmin Schnack.

King and Schnack pulled off a 7-5, 6-2 win over Chinese-Taipei’s Hua-Chen Lee and China’s Ya Zhou to get to the quarters.

It was a double whammy for the 16-year-old Clarice, who earlier in the day got the boot in the singles division via a 7-5, 6-2 setback to fifth pick Taiwanese Yi Chen in the Round of 16.

Clarice’s loss to Yi extinguished the hopes of Phl for the singles crown as her elder sister Christine and compatriots Tamitha Nguyen and Marinel Rudas all failed to get past the Round of 32 at the start of action last Monday.

With the win over the younger Patrimonio, Yi set up a quarterfinal duel with Katharina Lehnert, a Fil-German bet representing Germany, who posted a 6-2, 6-1 triumph over Ofri Lankri of Israel.