RI beach volleyball teams move ahead

RI beach volleyball teams move ahead

The Jakarta Post, Busan, South Korea

The Indonesian men's beach volleyball teams at the Busan 2002
Asian Games secured their berths in the quarterfinals after
beating their respective last-16 opponents on Haeundae beach on
Wednesday.

The women's team, however, lost their last group match but
secured their quarterfinals berth as well.

Ihe Indonesia 1 team of Agus Salim and Koko Prasetyo
Darkuncoro crushed the Qatar 1 team of Ali Ishaq Bairami and
Mohammed Salem al-Kuwari 21-12, 21-10.

Agus and Koko, who celebrated his 21st birthday on Wednesday,
will meet the Kazakhstan 2 team, which they defeated earlier in
their Group C match.

As soon as the match ended, Koko was surrounded by Korean
girls supporting the Indonesian team, who proceeded to sing
"Happy Birthday" for him.

Meanwhile, Andy Ardiansyah and Supriadi of the Indonesia 2
team had to work hard before downing Choi Bu-sik and Park Sang-
heun of the South Korea 2 team 21-13, 21-19.

They will now face the Thailand 1 team.

Commenting on the windy conditions and how they had affected
their play against the hosts, Andy said they would have to play
short passes instead of long ones if the problem still persisted.

"We can have better control playing short passes. We must also
keep our distance close," he said.

"We cannot afford to make high passes because the ball will be
greatly affected by the wind."

The women's team of Siti Nurjanah and Ni Putu Timy Yudhani
Rahayu were beaten 13-21, 11-21 by the China 1 team of Tian Jia
and Wang Fei.

Nurjanah and Timy will now meet the Thailand 1 team.

"We must be very careful in this knock-out round because all
our opponents are good," team manager Slamet Mulyanto said.

Slamet also admitted that the windy conditions had created
problems for the Indonesian players.

"But we must use our brains to use these conditions for our
own advantage."

Meanwhile, Indonesia's only judoka in the 14th Asiad, Endang
Sri Lestari, failed to take any medals in the women's 57-kilogram
weightclass division held at in the Gudeok gymnasium. Endang was
defeated by an ippon point by Yang Hsien Tzu of Chinese Taipei in
the third round.

Endang also wasted her chance to win a bronze medal after
losing to host Kim Hwa-soo in the repechage session also by an
ippon point.

In Dongju College gymnasium, Siauw Wieto moved through to the
quarterfinals of the 8-ball pool event after defeating Kunihiko
Takahashi of Japan 9-7.

Meanwhile, also in the 8-ball pool event, his compatriot
Muhammad Junarto was beaten 5-9 by Japan's Mekari Tomoki.