Personal problems cause Susi to fail in Brimingham
Personal problems cause Susi to fail in Brimingham
JAKARTA (JP): Susi Susanti may, like the delicate shuttle she plays, stop in midair and drop to the Olympic ground of Atlanta if she fails to solve her personal problems.
"It is very obvious that she had difficulties in concentrating well on the match. She must have been thinking of something else," noted sports observer Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar said yesterday.
Siregar, former training director of the Badminton Association of Indonesia, claims that he knows Susi personally very well.
He made the comment after seeing live on TV in the wee hours of yesterday morning how Susi fell to arch-rival Bang Soo-hyun of South Korea 11-7, 5-11, 11-4 in the All England semifinals in Birmingham.
Susi's failure dealt another blow to Indonesia whose world top men's singles and women's doubles had been ousted the day before.
Men's doubles Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky are the only Indonesian survivors. They were to take on Malaysia's pair of Cheah Soon Kit and Yap Kim Hock in the final later yesterday.
Siregar said he read signs of desperation in Susi after the 25-year old badminton queen trailed four points behind her Korean rival in the third set. Among Bang and world number one Ye Zhaoying of China, Susi is the oldest.
"It is very unusual of her to be so quickly overwhelmed by desperation. Something must have gone wrong," said the 68-year- old observer. "I think Susi needs a special psychologist to whom she can comfortably pour out all her troubles so that she can feel relieved, understood and accepted," he added.
Siregar may be right. In fact, there are strong indications that the 1.61m-tall Susi is upset about something, but maintaining silence.
The strongest indication was her shocking 2-11, 3-11 loss to Ye Zhaoying in the Sudirman Cup mixed team championships final in Lausanne in May last year. After the defeat, Susi went out for half an hour before joining her teammates. She looked very sad. It was very difficult to get a word from her. To reporters she just sighed, "So, what can I do?"
She was tearful after realizing that China was leading 3-0. Her gloom remained into that day's dinner, although her teammates, themselves losers, joked cheerfully. No one knew what was wrong with Susi and no one seemed to take it seriously enough to try to dig out the "why". (arf)