Tennis: J5 San Salvador –Copa Crowne Plaza 5 |18 November 2019

Keean Shah (right) and Damien Laporte (second right) are the men’s doubles runners-up of the Copa Crowne Plaza 5 tournament

 Laporte and Shah lose men’s doubles final

Young Seychellois rising star Damien Laporte and his partner Keean Shah came out as second best, after losing the men’s doubles final at the J5 San Salvador Tournament held in San Salvador, El Salvador from November 11-16.

Hosted by the Confederation of Tennis of Central America and the Caribbean (COTECC), the competition, also known as the Copa Crowne Plaza 5, attracted a large number of young players from various tennis academies all over the world.

Laporte and Shah started the tournament on a lucky note, after winning a bye straight into the quarterfinals where they clashed against the Mexican duo of Juan Pablo Lua Llamas and Gian Carlo Navarro.

Laporte and Shah won the match 2-0 (6-1, 6-1) to advance into the semifinal where they defeated Javier Flores and Alejandro Licea of the host country 2-0. The set scores were 7-6 and 6-2.

In the final Laporte and Shah were up against Benjamin Fernandez and Julian Lozano of Costa Rica where they lost 1-2 (6-2, 6-7, 10-8).

In the singles, due to the high number of players, Laporte had to play three matches before reaching the quarterfinals.

Luckily for him, he won a bye in the first round match, before defeating Ian Freire of Guatemala 2-0 (6-1,6-1) in the second round match and Oscar Andres Perez of Costa Rica by the same score in the third round tie for a place in the quarters. The set scores were 6-2 and 6-1.

In the quarterfinals, Laporte was up against Matias Gaedechens of Chili where he lost 0-2 (4-6, 2-6) to exit the tournament.

Laporte left El Salvador yesterday for Guatemala where he will be taking part in another tournament.

Roland Duval