Angie beats Wynne in Indonesia's top tennis star exhibition match
Angie beats Wynne in Indonesia's top tennis star exhibition match
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Angelique Widjaja defeated Wynne Prakusya in an exhibition match
at Kuningan, South Jakarta, between Indonesia's top tennis stars
that was interrupted by rain here on Wednesday.
The match, which was held as a prelude to the Junior Sanex
Master Invitation starting on Saturday, was played in odd scores,
with Angie, as the 17-year-old Angelique is nicknamed, winning 9-
6.
"I'm glad that I could beat Wynne," Angie said after the
match, as reported by Antara.
She offered a compliment to her senior player. "We are on par
in terms of skill. I was no better than Wynne," she said.
Wynne said she had not allowed herself to be stretched to the
limit, given it was only an exhibition.
"Because this was an exhibition, I took it as sparring game.
I'm not preoccupied with the defeat. A win would not have made me
happy either," she said.
Angie, who won the doubles trophy in the junior category at
the Australian Open, plans to travel to the Middle East for the
Qatar Finaelf Open and Dubai Women's Open next week.
The exhibition may have served as a warmup ahead of her
departure. On her return, she is scheduled to drop in to New
Delhi to join an antitobacco campaign under the auspices of the
World Health Organization.
Ranked lower than Wynne, Angie appeared to be losing her nerve
and was more spirited with her pressure early in the game to pull
3-0 in front. Angie is ranked 147 in the world, compared with
Wynne's 94.
Wynne upped her game to force a deuce before winning the
fourth game to reduce the deficit to 1-3.
The battle was tighter in the following game. Angie was
leading at 40-30 when the organizers adjourned it due to the rain
and play was moved to the adjacent indoor hall.
Angie carried on to finish her delayed task, 4-1. However,
inside the hall Wynne looked to be improving her game with a fast
ball combined with long rallies and short flicks over the net.
Wynne gave Angie no breath to catch up by winning the next
three games. But she could not overtake as Angie somehow
retrieved her play rhythm to break away to two games ahead.
After losing the tenth game, Angie took another two games to
lead at 8-5. Wynne reduced the gap, but Angie did not allow her
to battle further and ended the tussle 9-6.
The opponents then teamed up to beat the pairing of Wukirasih
Sawondari and Liza Andriani, 9-4. All four are Indonesian tennis
hopefuls for the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea.