The Letran lawn tennis team participated in the 9th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Schools Tennis Championships held in Singapore from August 12 to 19.

The tournament was hosted by the Singapore Schools Sports Council, participated in by student-athletes from Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam and host Singapore, at the modern hard courts of Jurong Country Club.

The Colegio’s tennis players represented the Philippines with their head coach Carlitos Rojo. The team is composed of Dave William Regencia, a freshmen operations management student, Ofel Isidore Lascuna, an accountancy freshman and from the high school department, John Arnel Go and John Maverick Victoria.

Joining them were two female players from De La Salle University and two male player-reserves from San Sebastian College.

Fr. Victor Calvo, O.P., athletics moderator, said it was a rare opportunity for the tennis players to gain exposure in an international competition.

The Philippine Sports Commission shouldered the team’s travel tax and the official uniform while the Singapore Sports Council shouldered the athletes’ hotel accommodation, meals and internal transportation.

The different teams competed in three rounds of singles and two doubles matches both for the men’s and women’s divisions.

The Filipino boys defeated the team from Brunei. In the first singles Regencia defeated Mathew Lauren Bun Bukit of Brunei while in the doubles matches the pair of Regencia and Raymark Gulfo beat Bukit and Asher Jeremiah Khan while the pair of Lascuna and Victoria defeated Mohamed Feisal and Nurul Bin Hambali.

But Team Philippines was beaten by the strong teams of Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore thus not getting enough points to advance to the championship round.

Coach Rojo said they did not expect to be the champions anyways. What is important, he said, is the team gave a good fight and increased its level of competitiveness through the international tournament experience.