Philippine tennis superstar Dyan Castillejo visited Pampanga’s pride and tennis star Marissa Sanchez days before her death.
Photos provided by Philippine Sports Commission Chairman Patrick Gregorio to this writer show that the two tennis greats posed for what could have been a last photo of them together. The visit was made by Castillejo as part of Philippine Tennis Association and PSC.
Castillejo, according to Gregorio, gave one of her SEA Games 2025 shirts to Sanchez during her visit.
“In honor of her representing the Philippines so many times,'” Gregorio quoted Castillejo as saying.
Sanchez, an Angeleña, reigned as No. 1 for the better part of a decade from the mid-1970s.
She took home the silver medal in the country’s first foray into the Southeast Asia Games in Malavsia in 1977, and saw action in the Asian Games, battling well-trained players from Japan, South Korea. and China.
Castillejo, on the one hand, reigned at the onset of 1980s. She is the first Filipina to get a WTA ranking, with several medals in SEA Games and other major competitions from 1981 to 1987. She also competed in the Fed Cup, Asian Games, the juniors of Wimbledon and US Open.
