Angie must consider foreign coach, says former star
Moch. N. Kurniawan Jakarta
Angelique Widjaja, the number one Indonesian tennis player, has been advised to hire a foreign coach to help her improve her flagging game.
Yayuk Basuki, a former Indonesian tennis star, said Angie, as Angelique is known, needed a foreign coach if she hoped to join the tennis elite near the top of the world rankings.
However, Yayuk said that if Angie was satisfied merely making it into the top 50 in the world, she could stay with current coach Deddy Tedjamukti.
"Well, it is all up to Angie whether she needs a foreign consultant or not. With her ability, Angie could still reach the world's top 50 at least," Yayuk told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the Thamrin Cup international junior tennis tournament here on Monday.
Angie, now 20 years old, reached a career best world ranking of 55th in March 2003, but a string of poor performances has since seen her fall to 128th in the rankings.
The drop is partly due to a nagging ankle injury that she sustained at the Qatar Open in February.
Angie suffered early exits at the Australian Open and the ongoing Wimbledon championships. She failed to qualify for the main round of the French Open, where she triumphed as a junior in 2002.
Yayuk's career best ranking was 30th, and she recalled her partnership with a foreign coach prior to the Wimbledon championships in 1995.
Despite working together for only two weeks, the partnership bore fruit and Yayuk made it to the quarterfinals of the tournament, where her previous best showing was the fourth round.
Yayuk said financial issues could be a problem because hiring a qualified tennis coach was expensive.
Tennis observer Benny Mailili also said Angie needed a foreign coach. He said a local coach might not be able to help Angie improve her skills enough to join the ranks of the world's elite players.
"It is a critical time for Angie whether or not she will decide to hire a consultant to increase her rankings. At her age, Angie could still reach her top performance," Benny said.
He acknowledged that it was a difficult decision to bring in foreign help, but said Angie, her family and her coach had to realize that Angie needed more help than she was receiving at the moment.
"If Angie had a qualified foreign consultant or coach, I believe her performance would be better," said Benny, the tournament director of the Thamrin Cup.
The Thamrin Cup features 130 junior players from 13 countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan and Russia.
Indonesians Albert Sie and Febri Joana are the top seeds in the boys' and girls' singles brackets, respectively.