Sarines ousts sis, but Hernandez gets boot in quarters

Lisa Sarines’ double title bid is still on. —NGAP PHOTO

Lisa Sarines was all business against twin sister Mona, but the other half of the double title-seeking tandem in the NGAP’s Philippine Match Play Championship wasn’t as fortunate.

In the men’s division, Jet Hernandez’s exit was the biggest surprise on Day 1 of the knockout stage at rain-dampened Luisita in Tarlac.

“I wish we could have drawn different opponents and both won,” Lisa, the PH Strokeplay champ last week, told the Inquirer, minutes after bundling out Mona, 3&2, to advance to the semifinals against another player she also has a strong association with, Precious Zaragosa.

“It’s just golf, I guess,” she went on. “It is what it is.”

Top men’s seed Rolando Bregente played just 28 holes in carving out two wins to make the semifinals, while top-ranked ladies’ bet Grace Quintanilla was taken to the limit by Brittany Tamayo, with the newly crowned Singapore Am Open champion needing 19 holes to prevail.

One fancied bet in Hernandez saw his amazing run dating back to winning the men’s Strokeplay title last week come to a grinding halt after taking a 4&2 defeat at the hands of 14-year-old Bukidnon phenom Ralph Batican.

“He really played well,” the 21-year-old Hernandez, a PH Team member like Bregente, said in a separate interview. “I guess it’s off to starting prep for the Nomura Cup for me.”

Bregente and Hernandez share the same mission this week, and that is to win the Match Play title for the first time in their careers, with Bregente racing against the clock as a pro career beckons at 24 years old.

“I would love to win this tournament,” Bregente, who routed young Bobe Salahog, 7&6, in the quarterfinals, said in Filipino. “This is one major championship I haven’t won. And I would love to have the chance this year.”

Quintanilla, meanwhile, will next clash with another teenager in Nicola Gan, who scored a 2&1 win over Tashanah Balangauan, while the 15-year-old Zaragosa upset No. 2 Ally Gaccion.

“We’re very good friends,” Lisa Sarines said of Zaragosa, whom she spent a lot of time with at a theme park last Saturday in Pampanga after her Strokeplay win. “I will just focus on my game, because I can’t control what she does.”