Indonesia Open has yet to produce strong match from local women

Musthofid and Moch N. Kurniawan The Jakarta Post Jakarta

While Indonesia's men's players salvaged some pride for the hosts, taking two titles at the recently-concluded Indonesia Open badminton championship, it has left the country's badminton governing body, PBSI, with the persistent problem of the lackluster women's field.

Taufik Hidayat, who earned Indonesia's only gold medal at the Olympics in August, continued his winning run with his third title in a row in the men's singles, while Luluk Hadiyanto and Alven Yulianto took honors in the men's doubles.

Taufik's triumph at home was proven with his domination of Chinese Chen Hong, who has now been beaten in all six meetings to date between them.

The last three wins for Taufik came in the finals of the Indonesia Open following their previous match-up in Surabaya 2002 and in Batam in 2003.

The home victory in the men's doubles was a different matter, with Luluk and Alven having to battle the odds to eventually emerge winners over Chinese Fu Haifeng and Cai Yun. Before the Indonesia Open final, the Indonesians had lost four times to the Chinese pair in their last five meetings.

Taufik's expected win over Chen Hong aside, the home fans were more concerned about Lin Dan, the world's number one and the tournament's top seed, who Taufik had to tackle in the semifinals.

Against Fu Haifeng/Cai Yun, the prospects for the men's doubles was not encouraging given Luluk and Alven's poor record against the Chinese.

Taufik too appeared cautious in his match against left-hander Lin Dan, as he admitted later. "If I could choose my opponents, I would not choose to face Lin Dan," he said.

It was only because the Indonesian believed in the virtue of his sport that he tried to nurture some confidence about the match.

"In the end, it is play on the court that counts. Lin Dan might have been favored to win, but in fact it was me who won," he said.

Luluk and Alven's doubles victory for Indonesia prevented China from making a clean sweep of the medals, thanks to their might in the women's division.

Xie Xingfang won her second women's singles title of the tournament. The women's doubles honor was already in safe Chinese hands even before the finals were wrapped up, with Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen and Zhang Dan/Zhang Yawen in the fight for the top prize.

Zhang Jun/Gao Ling secured their third title with a win in the mixed doubles.

With China appearing invincible, Indonesia has been desperate to find a formula for developing strong women's contenders.

After the retirement of Susi Susanti -- who capped herself with six Indonesia Open trophies -- Indonesia has lost virtually all its ground in the women's division.

Ellen Angelina was the last Indonesian woman to bask in Indonesia Open glory when she won the women's singles in 2001. Indonesia made a clean sweep of the five titles on offer in that year, in the absence of China, which opted out citing security fears.

In the 2004 tournament, Indonesia had the bulk of the women's players. However, all of them exited early, leaving only Fransisca Ratnasari Haris as the lone contender in the quarterfinals, where she was stopped by Salakjit Ponsana.

The only credit for Fransisca was that she chalked up a big scalp by stunning top seed Pi Hongyan en route to the quarterfinals.

In the women's doubles, Indonesia had 15 pairs in the main round only to see Nathalia Poluakan and Rini Mundiastuti through before they were stopped in the third round by eventual winners Zhang Dan and Zhang Yawei of China.

Nova Widianto/Lilyana Natsir and Anggun Nugroho/Teti Yunita fell short of reaching the semifinals.

The failure of Nova and Lilyana was very disappointing as the pair had been one of Indonesia's best prospects, with their success in the Japan Open.

Indonesia's women's poor performance showed that they have a long way to go for them to get back into contention at the international level.

Hendrawan, a silver medalist in 2000 and now in charge of the national women's team, is well aware of the problem when he warned against exaggerating Fransisca's upset win over Pi Hongyan.

"Fransisca's win over Pi Hongyan was just the beginning of a long journey for our women players to try to re-enter the world ranks."