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.