Junior tennis stars suffer setback
Junior tennis stars suffer setback
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's young tennis players failed to end their World Youth Cup Asia Oceania zonal qualifying round happily when they suffered their first defeats on Sunday.
The Indonesian girls' team, top seed at the zonal matches, failed to break the Japanese jinx, losing 1-2 in Sunday's semifinals. In the boys' team semifinals, Australia completed its unbeaten run with a 3-0 drubbing of the Indonesian boys' team.
Despite the losses, both the Indonesian girls and boys qualified for the World Youth Cup finals in Essen, Germany, along with the other semifinalists. No final showdown was staged in the week-long competitions.
The Indonesian boys' team will make its third finals appearance, while its girls' team will make its second.
The Japanese girls were forced to struggle before dousing Indonesia's fire. A solid partnership of Akiko Morigami and Shiho Hisamatsu secured Japan's victory by beating Enny Sulistyowati and Wynne Prakusya 6-3, 2-6, 6-1.
Japan went up 1-0 after Morigami managed to maintain her winning streak against Liza Andriani. Morigami made Liza run throughout the game with powerful strokes, ending in a 6-4, 6-1 victory, a repeat of their last meeting in the Astra International championships last week.
"I gave the chance to Liza to play a rematch, but Morigami proved better than Liza," coach Deddy Prasetyo said.
Second singles Wynne helped her team level the tie with a nail biting 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 7-5 win over Maiko Inuoi in a match that lasted for two hours. Wynne gave her fans a thriller when she wasted her 5-1 lead with unforced errors to allow Inuoi to come back to 5-5 in the decider.
In the boys' event, Indonesian second singles Peter Handoyo gave up 6-7 (3-7), 4-6 to Michael Lozarzo. First singles Feby Widhiyanto 4-6, 1-6 was crushed by Sebastian Swierk. Australia completed its trouncing of Indonesia when Lozarzo and Swierk teamed up to beat Feby and Peter 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.
"It's not a disappointing result at all. We lost mainly because our opponents are better," Deddy said.
In other semifinals, the South Korean boys routed Chinese Taipei 3-0. The all-conquering South Koreans continued their victory in the girls' semifinal with another 3-0 demolition of China. (amd)