MANILA - Ateneo de Manila University continued its surprising dominance in the men’s division in Day 6 of the 72nd UAAP badminton tournament at the Rizal Memorial Badminton Hall last Sunday.

The Blue Shuttlers blanked the still winless Adamson Falcons, 5-0, as they remained unscathed in six ties.  

Ateneo, which only managed to land sixth place last season, wowed the crowd with a smashing success in sweeping all the five matches.

Ateneo’s Paolo Sunga and national team mainstay Antonino Gadi began the steamroll with 21-15, 21-7 and 21-8, 21-10 victories over Adamson’s Akira Gan and Jordan Alcantara, respectively.

Sunga teamed up with Orville Yu while Gadi paired with Raphael Sanchez in sweeping the doubles matches before Marco Echon capped off Ateneo’s dominance with 21-16, 21-13 victory over Kim Francisco.

Last season’s fifth placer University of the Philippines meanwhile remained at second spot with a 4-1 win over National University.

Kelvin Panganiban and Paul Vivas swept the singles matches while the pairs of Vivas-Kyle Vinarao and Charlo Tengco-Roden Rivera made no sweat in dispatching their respective NU counterparts.  

NU’s EJ Roldan stalled what could have been a UP sweep with a come-from-behind 18-21,22-20,21-14 win over Dominic Garcia in the non-bearing last singles match.

In the other ties, La Salle shackled defending champion University of the East, 4-1, while last season runner up University of Sto. Tomas leaned on RJ Ormilla’s 21-17, 19-21, 21-14 win against Michael Kevin Cudiamat in the last singles match to escape with a 3-2 victory.

Collision course

In the women’s division, last season’s title protagonists Far Eastern University and De La Salle University are on a collision course anew with identical 6-0 records.

FEU recovered from the loss of last season’s Most Improved Player Diosanne Abangan to UST’s Camille Yang, 21-23, 19-21 to post a 4-1 victory.

La Salle, on the other hand, yielded only the first doubles’ match before coasting to a similar 4-1 win against UE.

In the other ties, Adamson nipped NU, 3-2, while UP dealt Katipunan neighbor a 4-1 beating.

On the last day of eliminations this coming Saturday, DLSU and FEU will go on separate ways in what could be a preview of the finals. - Alder T. Almo

For more UAAP, visit www.uaapsports.com.