Indonesian players in Circuits main draw

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian women's singles Wukirasih Sawondari, Irawati Moerid Iskandar and Liza Andriyani will be the main draw at the US$10,000 apiece third and fourth Indonesian Women's Circuits to be held at the Kemayoran Tennis Center in Central Jakarta.

The Indonesian Tennis Association (Pelti) official in charge of the competition, Soebronto Laras, told a media briefing Thursday in Senayan that the three athletes would be up against tough seeded competition, including top seed Jeon Mi-ra of South Korea and second seed Maiko Inoue of Japan.

National players will, in addition, face threats from Benjamas Sangaram of Thailand, Wang I-Ting of China Taipei and Rushmi Chakravarthi of India.

"We also have several other players in the running, including the young players Angelique Widjaja, Dea Sumantri and Frederika Girsang," he said.

The third Circuit will take place from July 10 to July 16 while the fourth Circuit will be staged from July 17 to July 23.

Twenty-five players were admitted to the main draw and 30 to the qualifying round, with 21 substitutes being held in reserve.

Pelti received sponsorships from energy drink manufacturer Extra Joss to stage the two circuits and also the third Indonesian Men's Futures from July 17 to July 23 and the fourth Futures from July 24 to July 30. All events take place in Kemayoran.

Soebronto said Pelti had no other option as regards its choice of venue as it will require 20 courts to stage all of the events, including practice courts for the players.

"Many Pelti provincial branches want to host such international tournaments but most of them don't have enough courts to meet the requirements," he said.

"The disadvantage of hosting the event in Kemayoran is that it is hotter there than in Senayan and this has caused a number of overseas players to suffer from fatigue. Besides, the location is quite far away and is difficult to reach. But it's the only place that has enough courts to stage international events."

For the Futures events, Pelti received financial support of $7,500 from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in recognition of the active role played by the association in hosting international events.

The upcoming fifth and sixth Futures tournaments, scheduled to take place here in October, will also receive similar financial assistance from the ITF. (ivy/yan)