Indonesia, Japan advance to World Group playoffs
Indonesia, Japan advance to World Group playoffs
Agence France-Presse, Tokyo
Asia's top two countries Japan and Indonesia underlined their better seeding against Thailand and China on Saturday to make berths in the playoffs for the Fed Cup tennis World Group.
Japan's ace Ai Sugiyama emerged victorious in a battle of Asia's top two women against Tamarine Tanasugarn 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 for an insurmountable 2-0 lead in the best-of-three contest.
Angelique Widjaja and Wynne Prakusya stormed back from one set and 0-3 down to beat Li Ting and Sun Tiantian 5-7, 6-4, 6-3 in the deciding doubles to give Indonesia a 2-1 victory over China.
"I'd like to thank this home crowd. My players received their energy and they both came back from behind to win the two singles. With this win, we opened the door for the World Group," said Japan's captain Takeshi Koura.
"I hope we can play the playoff in July with these players improving one step better."
For Indonesia, it was sweet revenge for their loss to China last year to miss the ticket for the playoff after the International Tennis Federation (ITF) mistakenly matched them up with the Chinese.
The Indonesians were to play Japan without Sugiyama last year, but had to play home team China as the ITF set the finals between two top finishers of the preliminary groups, instead of runners- up of the opposite groups.
"It's true," said Indonesia's captain Suzanna Anggarkusuma. "We wanted to play Japan at that time, we didn't want to meet China last year, because we knew that China was strong at that time, and they were playing at home.
"We lost to China last year because of the mistake of the ITF, too."
Sun Tiantian destroyed Wynne's 22nd birthday Saturday by beating her 6-0, 6-7 (7/9), 7-5 to put the third seeds one up in the opener, but Angelique made it even by beating Zheng Jie 6-3, 6-3.
Suzanna said it was a "miracle" after losing the first set and coming back from 5-7 and 0-3 in the final set of the doubles.
"This is tennis," said Angelique, the 2001 Wimbledon junior champion.
"Even if it's 5-0 and 40-love (down), or on a match point, anything can happen. So we just didn't give up every point, we just had fun, we were not nervous, we just enjoyed it on the court.
Wynne said: "Actually this is the first time that I won a match on my birthday, I always lost on my birthday before, both the singles and doubles, I lost everything.
"But today, it's a little bit different. I think God helped us to win. So I'm very happy," she added.