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)