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)