Haarhuis claims first career title

Haarhuis claims first career title

JAKARTA (JP): Paul Haarhuis of the Netherlands defied a
worsening wrist injury to beat Czech Radomir Vasek yesterday at
the Indonesia Men's Open tennis championships. The victory was
the first singles title of his career.

It was more than a relief for Haarhuis, whose 7-5, 7-5 win
over never-say-die Vasek in a hard-fought battle put an end to
years of waiting for a singles triumph. In the previous two years
Haarhuis had fallen in the last hurdle of his three finals and
had never got beyond the semifinals at the US$300,000 Danamon
tournament here.

"Everybody always says I'm a good doubles specialist. People
never look at my singles record," said Haarhuis who tops the ATP
World Doubles ranking. He is currently ranked number 59 in the
latest singles ranking.

Haarhuis lost his singles finals in Singapore in 1992, and in
Doha and Philadelphia last year.

Playing before a crowd of 200 at the 3,000-seat Senayan indoor
tennis stadium, second seed Haarhuis got off to a dreadful start
when he dropped his game for 0-3 down, following a string of
Vasek's punishing crosscourts.

The Czech world number 132 hit every stroke perfectly, except
for his volleys. He saved a break point only to lose the fifth
game after he netted a stop volley. Vasek came back to take
charge, firing Haarhuis' baseline with his two-handed backhand
for another break to take a 5-3 lead.

But Vasek, who making his first finals appearance, lost his
grip during the decisive game. He double faulted three times as
Haarhuis fired his passing shots for two breaks in a row. The
Dutchman did not waste too much time while serving for a first-
set win, banging an ace and three big serves to seal the set.

Haarhuis kept up his steam in the second set as Vasek remained
in big trouble with his volleys. Vasek added his wide lobs with
two netted stop volleys to concede a break in the fifth game and
let his rival go 5-3 ahead.

Composure is always the key point during a pivotal game.
Serving for a win, Haarhuis shot every return wide to allow Vasek
to come level at 5-5.

But error-prone Vasek squandered his chance with dozens of
netted volleys, allowing his opponent to regain his confidence.
Haarhuis slammed his big serves to end Vasek's resistance.

"We get the confidence when we play rivals whose rankings are
far below us, but both Vasek and I have the same chance to win
the match since we played well to reach the final," said
Haarhuis, who walked away with the winner's $43,000 in cash.

Australia Open

He added that the victory would help him to play better in the
Australian Open, which starts today. However the tournament could
turn out to have been a bad warm-up ground, since there is a big
contrast in climate between Jakarta and Melbourne.

Heavy rains have drenched Jakarta throughout the week while
the heat in Melbourne has been 33 degree Celsius.

Haarhuis will play singles as well as doubles with compatriot
Jacco Eltingh. The Dutch tandem won the Australia Open men's
doubles last year.

Haarhuis reiterated his disappointment with the poor turn-out
during the week-long tournament. "It's too bad to see no crowd
when we play hard. It's frustrating," he said.

In the doubles, Russian-Australian duo of Andrei Olhovskiy and
David Adams took their first title of the year after beating
Ronald Agenor of Haiti and Shuzo Matsuoka 7-5, 6-3. Olhovskiy and
Adams, who finished 1994 as world team number six, shared the top
prize money of $21,000 (amd).