JEDDAH: Corporate Bankers came up trumps with a resounding win over Risk Management team, lifting the Team Champions crown in the NCB Tennis Challenge which concluded recently at the NCB sports compound here. Barely making it through to the round-robin elimination round, then emerging out of the brink in the semifinals against the unbeaten and top-ranked Retail Team with a decisive 2-1 sets win, the Corporate Bankers went on to the daunted task of defeating the 2nd-ranked Risk Management in straight sets, rendering the 3rd set a dead rubber. Corporate's Wael Mirza/Harris Anwar lost their service game at the start of the first set, but recovered with a counter break-serve in the third game to regain the lead 2-1. Risk Management's Bien Micu/Hani Kordi leveled up at 2-2, 3-3, then went ahead 4-3, but the Corporate Banker's duo grabbed the service game of Bien Micu in the 8th game to tie the scores at 4-4. Corporate's Wael Mirza/Harris Anwar continued racking up winners in the 9th and 11th games and held serves to break away at 7-4, but their opponents kept charging back in the last three games to level up at 7-7 for a tiebreak game. In the ensuing tiebreaker, Wael Mirza/Harris Anwar prevailed 7-5, winning the first set for Corporate Bankers. The second set saw Dennis Miralles and Ahmed Younis of Corporate Bankers toil against Romy Payong and Leonard David of Risk Management by starting at 4-0, before Risk Management's Romy Payong held serve in the 5th game for 4-1 score. Miralles and Younis padded their lead to 6-1. There was no stopping the onslaught after that, only a token break serve against Miralles in the 8th game. The set ended 8-2 for corporate. That was enough for them to be crowned the Team Champions of the NCB Y-2011 Tennis Challenge. Organized by Rene Palad, Leonard David, Sohail Al-Hafez, Adan Republica and Manny Dela Cruz the tournament heads into Singles Division competition under the official patronage of the NCB's Sports Management Committee, headed by Najeeb Abdulrahman and NCB Sports Club Manager Ahmed Al
