Indonesia may not compete in 2000 Olympic tennis

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)