Indonesia, Japan in tennis final rematch
Indonesia, Japan in tennis final rematch
HIROSHIMA, Japan (Agencies): Indonesia's part-time doubles
team of Yayuk Basuki and Romana Tedjakusuma won the decisive
rubber against China yesterday to set up a revenge match against
host Japan in the Asian Games women's team tennis final.
"Even if the Japanese are all top players, there's always a
chance for us," said Yayuk, who had not expected a medal before
the tournament started.
"We're going to go flat out on court, we will never give up,
we'll fight for it," she declared.
Yayuk was on the team beaten by Japan in the final at the 1990
Asian Games in Beijing. She saw her side's hopes of reaching the
Hiroshima final suffer an early setback when Romana lost to
Beijing singles silver medalist Chen Li 4-6, 0-6.
Then Yayuk, women's doubles and mixed doubles defending
champion, showed no sign of her injured right wrist as she beat
Chinese number one Li Fang 6-4, 6-3 to level the contest.
The Chinese duo went down 1-3 in the final set of the doubles.
But they broke back in the seventh game forcing Romana to make a
backhand volley error. The Indonesians again moved up a break in
the eighth and went on to win 6-3, 2-6, 6-3.
"We didn't expect anything on the first day, but now we are in
the finals, so it's different. Still, there's nothing easy about
winning the final against Japan, but I'm gonna fight for it,"
said Yayuk.
In tomorrow's final, Romana will challenge Mana Endo in the
first singles and Yayuk will take on Naoko Sawamatsu.
The defending champion, without its number one player Kimiko
Date, whitewashed Taiwan 3-0 to secure its place.
Endo, who has seen her world ranking rise to 28, overpowered
Weng Tzu-ting 6-1, 6-1. World number 25 Sawamatsu fought off
Taiwan's number one Wang Shi-ting 6-2, 7-6 (7-2), with Nana
Miyagi and Ai Sugiyama winning the doubles.
"I know how to play her (Sawamatsu)," said Yayuk. "She is very
steady and it's like a war, we call playing her like a war, she
goes to play everything and she hits everything. Maybe I'm gonna
try attacking."
Indonesia's coach Suharyadi said: "I make Indonesia the
underdogs against Japan. I know Japan is very strong, but we
still have a chance to win."
Men's event
In the men's contest, Indonesia, smarting from its Davis Cup
defeat to Switzerland last week, blanked Uzbekistan 3-0 yesterday
to set up a semifinal match against Japan. The host team, without
ace singles Shuzo Matsuoka, downed defending champion China 2-1.
Playing first singles, Indonesian number two Suwandi bounced
back from a nervy start in his Asian Games debut to beat Dmitri
Tomashevich 7-6 (9-7), 6-1. Second singles Benny Wijaya secured
his side a place in the last four round by overpowering Oleg
Ogorodov 6-3, 6-2.
The second-seeded team, which received a bye in the first
round, did not waste its warm-up matches as its doubles Bonit
Wiryawan and Donny Susetyo completed Indonesia's whitewashing run
with a 6-1, 7-6 (7-5) win over Ogorodov and Tomashevich.
In another quarterfinal encounter, Leander Paes came to the
rescue of India after it went 1-0 down against Taiwan. Paes, who
surprisingly defeated Wayne Ferreira of South Africa in their
Davis Cup tie last week, beat Lien Yu-hui 6-0, 6-4 in the second
singles and won the doubles with Guarav Natekar.
Top seed India will take on Malaysia which survived a hard-
fought battle against the 1990 silver medalist South Korea 2-1.