Indonesia takes two titles in Grand Prix finals

By Primastuti Handayani

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): Indonesia took two of the five titles at stake in the Lipton World Grand Prix Badminton Finals here yesterday, courtesy of Susi Susanti and the pair of Ricky Subagdja and Rexy Mainaky.

Ricky and Rexy, the Olympic gold medalists, solidified their status as the world's strongest men's doubles pair when they beat archrivals Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock of Malaysia, 15-4, 15- 9.

What was touted as a clash reminiscent of their memorable, three-set thriller at the Atlanta Olympic final, turned out to be a meek affair, with the Indonesians, who were in devastating form, completely dominating the Malaysians from the outset.

Earlier Susi won the Grand Prix Finals women's singles crown for a record sixth time, whipping her old nemesis China's Ye Zhaoying in straight sets, 11-4, 11-1 in less than 40 minutes. It was Susi's third win in four encounters against Ye this year. She lost to the Chinese Number One only in the Japan Open last January.

In-form Susi rose to the occasion splendidly as she frustrated Ye with her trademark super-defensive game, marked by long and energy-sapping rallies forcing the Chinese into numerous errors.

"I was a little bothered by the draft in at the stadium, so I decided to play safe by hitting the shuttle as low as possible during the rallies," Susi said after the match.

Two other Indonesian finalists, the women's doubles pair of Eliza and Yelin, and the mixed doubles team of Trikus Heryanto and Minarti Timur fell at the last hurdle.

Eliza and Yelin went down with a whimper, 14-15, 4-15 to China's Olympic champions Ge Fei and Gu Jun.

Trikus and Minarti crashed to Denmark's Michael Sogaard/Rikke Olsen, 10-15, 11-15.

The men's singles title went to unfancied Fung Permadi, a former Indonesian player now playing for Chinese Taipei. Fung scored an upset 15-12,15-9 victory over the highly regarded Sun Yun of China.

It was Fung's first major title in 13 years. He left Indonesia for Australia in 1994 before migrating to Chinese Taipei later that year.

Trikus was gracious in defeat. "We have to admit that the Danes played better than we did," he said.

"It was a very good match. Trikus made lots of unforced errors much to our advantage. Every rally was very long and grueling, and I think he was as tired as I was," Sogaard said.

From the outset, it was painfully clear that Trikus and Minarti , who beat Sogarard and Olsen in last August's Malaysian Open, were out of form.

The vociferous roars of encouragement from the 2,000 spectators failed to help them raise their game to the desired heights. Time and again they made a string of unforced errors, both driving the shuttles into the net and hitting it out of play.

Trikus/Minarti made the final by defeating Peter Axelsson and Catrine Bengtsson of Sweden 15-4, 17-16, Saturday while Sogaard and Olsen beat compatriots Thomas Stavngaard and Ann Jorgansen 18-13, 15-6.

Eliza and Zelin, who cruised into the final after beating Qin Yiyuan and Tang Yongshu of China 15-6, 15-6, were a total letdown, much to the dismay of the spectators.

On the contrary, Ge and Gu, who had just received an award from Hong Kong-based Star TV as the best players of the year, duly lived up to their highly rated billing. The Chinese duo got to the final after eliminating Lisbet Stuer-Lauridsen and Marlene Thomson of Denmark 15-8, 10-15, 15-7.

"Ge and Gu played extremely well. We simply could not match them. No doubt, they deserved the victory," a dismayed Eliza said.

World Cup -- Page 14