Month: May 2008

It doesn’t matter if you play the sport or not. It’s unimportant if you’ve never swung a backhand in your life and only watch tennis and Rafael Nadal on Star Sports. What’s essential is this: This whole week until Sunday, you have a chance to witness a rare occurrence in Cebu. Who, where, what am I talking about?

RP’s best tennis stars. Live! Here in Cebu City. Joining the Cebuana Lhuillier Men’s Open.

Thanks to Jean Henri Lhuillier, an ace businessman with an unrivaled love for sports, we are witnesses to this major sports event. Jean Henri, the president of the Amateur Softball Association of the Philippines, is a former U.S. college Division-I varsity tennis player who continues to swing forehands until today. In fact, yesterday at 5:30 p.m. with partner Jun Toledo, he joined his own event and played doubles.

It’s starting today and finishing next Sunday. It’s one vs. one, two vs. two. There’s singles. Doubles. Fists will be pumped, arms raised, racquets thrown, shouts will echo the arena. There’ll be 36-year-olds competing against 15-year-olds with 82-year-olds applauding. It’s an event that Cebu has not witnessed in years. The last time? In Cebu City? A looooooong time ago. But today, tomorrow, Tuesday, and onwards until May 11, in full display will be yellow balls and white clouds and red racquets and brown clay.

She’s a Cebuana. She is not a singer or a sexy temptress. She, in fact, is a business, a company—and one of the largest in it’s industry.

She is Cebuana Lhuillier. And for the next eight days, Cebuanos will get a chance to sit fascinated, stand spellbound and clap riveted to an event that’s a long time coming: the top men’s tennis players fighting in Cebu to see who’s tops in the Philippines.