Indonesia may not compete in 2000 Olympic tennis

JAKARTA (JP): Chairman of the Indonesian Tennis Association (Pelti) Tanri Abeng said that national men's and women's single players had a slim chance of competing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, due to the poor training system in place.

He said on Wednesday that Indonesian tennis players might be ready for the 2004 Olympics, because the country needed time and enough funds to develop talented players who could follow the achievements of legendary player Yayuk Basuki.

Yayuk played at three Olympics -- 1988 (Seoul, South Korea), 1992 (Barcelona, Spain) and 1996 (Atlanta, the United States) -- but did not make it to the finals. Only single's players with a world ranking of between 1 to 48 automatically qualify for next year's Olympics.

"Don't think that the Olympics is everything. We are just starting to groom young players to produce national players like Yayuk. We are relatively late for this. We have to be realistic. We can't produce top players who can compete in the Olympics in just one year," said Tanri, who is also state minister of the empowerment of state enterprises.

"If we fail to send our players to the world event, it means that we have weaknesses in our training system. This fact should have stimulated us to improve our training, particularly for the 12 to 15-year-old players."

He said a shortage of funds, resulting from the monetary crisis, was another constraint in the training program.

"Before the crisis, we could send four players away for overseas training, but now, our budget only allow us to send one player annually."

Tanri made the comments after attending a ceremony at the Hilton Executive club to mark continuing sponsorship from Wilson sporting goods to 200 top coaches registered with Pelti's Coach Organizing Committee.

Wilson sporting goods symbolically handed over 15 tennis rackets worth some Rp 2 million each to 15 coaches, including Yustedjo Tarik, Suharyadi, Tintus A. Wibowo and wife Suzanna Anggarkusumah.

Tanri said however, that the men's and women's double players still had a chance to qualify for the quadrennial event if they won their divisions at the Asian tennis championship scheduled to be held next year.

"Don't expect too much from our players. Our women's doubles will face tough competition from Japan and Thailand, and our men's doubles, from Thailand. We have to admit our weaknesses so we that we are motivated to work harder," Tanri said.

He said that in the future, Pelti would invite foreign coaches to exchange experiences with national coaches and to train national players. He also said Pelti had increased the number of local tournaments attended by international players.

"We have eight tournaments annually to allow national players to test their skills against international players. I think it's enough; we don't need to compete overseas," he said. (ivy)