As of January 5, 2009, Francis Casey "Niño" Alcantara has moved up to No. 21 among International Tennis Federation (ITF) Juniors in the world.  This was announced recently by Fernando "Randy" Villanueva, concurrently PHILTA Vice President for Southern Manila and Davis Cup Administrator.

The high-flying Alcantara's new position among top world juniors is documented in the table, "ITF Junior Circuit, Junior World Ranking compiled by ITF, Boys Combined Rollover Rating as of 05 January 2009," which can be accessed at the ITF site at
http://www.itftennis.com/shared/medialibrary/pdf/original/IO_38771_original.PDF.  You may also download this file by clicking here.

Following is the complete list of Filipino junior players who were listed in the January 5, 2009 ITF Rankings:

Boys

Girls

From 154th in ITF Junior rankings earlier in 2007, Alcantara zoomed to 96th in December 2007.  Before the 2008 U.S. Open Juniors, he had moved up 70th and was at 39th right before he won the PHINMA International ITF Juniors tournament at the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center on Saturday, November 29, 2008.

One Filipino owns the distinction of having ranked World Number One in the ITF Juniors—Felix Barrientos.  Will the Niño Alcantara be the next?

(See related PhilTENNIS.com story, "Arcilla, Alcantara and Zoleta year-end champs!").