RI beats Taipei to win Fed Cup Asia Oceania

RI beats Taipei to win Fed Cup Asia Oceania

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia, unbeaten since the opening round of the Fed Cup Asia Oceania regional qualifying women's tennis tournament, beat Chinese Taipei 3-0 yesterday and will now play in July for promotion to world group two.

The singles clash between the finalists' highly-rated number one players, Yayuk Basuki of Indonesia and Wang Shi-Ting of Chinese Taipei, was one of the highlights of the tournament.

Yayuk, ranked 24 in the world, and Wang Shi-Ting, ranked 39, are both winners of six professional singles titles and this week showed the strength of women's tennis in Asia.

AFP reported from Wellington, the 26-year-old Yayuk had a 43- 27 record in Fed Cup singles before this week's tie, which placed her 15th on the all-time list of singles winners in the international women's competition.

After 42 ties, she has joined Chris Evert and Arantxa Sanchez- Vicario in sixth place among the most experienced players in Fed Cup history. Her victims in the World Group qualifying matches last year included the Australian Open champion Martina Hingis.

Yayuk led the final 1-0 at the start of play and the classy Indonesian clinched the tie for her team after she recovered from the loss of the first set to win, saving the second set in a tiebreak.

Wang Shi-Ting took the first set 6-3 and had the opportunity to win the match in the second set but Yayuk showed her experience and her professionalism to force the tiebreak which she won 7-0.

She continued to play with precision and power in windy conditions and won the deciding set 6-3.

Earlier, Indonesia's young hopeful Wynne Prakusya defeated Taipei's second singles Julie Huang 6-2, 6-4.

Wynne, ranked 743 in the world, opened the first set with a shaky start. She was able to take control and forced Huang to make unforced errors to finish the set 6-2.

In the second set, Wynne lost concentration when leading 4-2. But the 16-year-old was able to overcome the pressure and conclude the set 6-4.

Wynne has never lost her five matches during the qualifying round, which started on March 11.

Nearly 100 Indonesian supporters, including the Indonesia Ambassador to New Zealand T. Sumolang, threw their weight behind Wynne who celebrated Indonesia's 1-0 victory although the second singles match had not started.

In the doubles competition, Wynne and Eny Sulistyowati beat Hsu Hsueh-Li/Julie Huang 6-3, 6-2 to take the tie 3-0.

The Indonesian team will return home Tuesday and will stay in Bali for another two days for a break after the exhausting matches.

China finished third in group one after beating Hong Kong 3-0. New Zealand sprinted to a 3-0 win over fourth seeds Thailand to clinch fifth place.

India finished in seventh place after Kazakhstan withdrew. India and Kazakhstan have been relegated to group two for next year's regional playoffs, their places in group one being taken by the Philippines and Uzbekistan.

Both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan defaulted their matches yesterday because of travel problems. (yan)