Rasmussen out of Indonesia Open

JAKARTA (JP): The misfortune-plagued US$120,000 Sanyo Indonesia Open badminton championship has suffered another setback with the withdrawal of world men's singles champion Peter Rasmussen due to injury.

Organizing committee chairman Juniarto Suhandinata said on Wednesday that notification came just before the deadline for registration on Tuesday, but there was no explanation from the Danish Badminton Association about Rasmussen's injury.

The Dane joins the long list of no-shows at the annual event. Others include compatriots Peter Gade Christensen, the world men's singles number one, and world women's singles number three Camilla Martin, who canceled due to "administrative mistakes".

Chinese players look certain to skip the tournament for a second consecutive year. Last year they missed the event due to visa problems.

Indonesian world number three and top seed Hendrawan will face his strongest opposition from Denmark's 1996 Olympic gold medalist Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen and compatriot Hariyanto Arbi.

Mia Audina leads the women's singles seeding and has a great chance of ending her title drought in the depleted field.

Although he was disappointed by the number of major absentees, Juniarto said he believed it would benefit the host squad.

"What else can we do? It means Indonesian players must produce a clean sweep." Indonesian shuttlers won all the five titles last year's event in Surakarta, Central Java.

Thailand entered on Tuesday and Hong Kong on Wednesday.

But the Hong Kong badminton body requested in its fax that Indonesia "speed up the visa-processing procedure".

One of its six shuttlers, Tam Kai Chuen, holds a DI (Declaration of Identity) passport.

"Providing an available visa for Mr. Tam is decisive on whether we really would joint the event or not," read the fax.

"We don't know whether the immigration office or the State Intelligence Coordinating Body are cooperative enough to help us," Juniarto said.

"We'll try hard to help them because they want to participate in the event. The world badminton body, IBF, has persuaded those national badminton associations to come here and we don't want the IBF to think that we're not serious."

Apart from the hosts, players from Denmark, Poland, England, Malaysia, Nigeria, Hong Kong, Thailand and Brunei Darussalam will compete in the event, scheduled from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 at the Senayan Indoor Stadium. The event was delayed from its original July calendar slot due to security and sponsorship concerns. (yan)