Seeded players triumph in a spiritless match
Seeded players triumph in a spiritless match
By Hidayat Jati
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Seeded national and foreign players predictably marched into the second round of the 1994 RCTI Indonesia Open after encountering mostly spunkless, mediocre play and walkovers yesterday in the malaise-ridden US$166,000 tournament.
Hariyanto Arbi, world number three and recent champion in Vietnam, won without even stepping onto the courts of the recently renovated Among Raga indoor stadium, thanks to a walkover involving the unknown Australian shuttler Hannes Fuchs.
Hariyanto, who is the Open's number two seed, prevailed in the World Cup invitational tourney in Ho Chi Minh City last week, after Danish player Thomas Stuer-Lauridsen had his ligament torn during the early stage of their final fight.
Lauridsen, who was to be seeded fifth here, is absent. The Danish team chose not to replace him, thus giving a walkover triumph to Central Javanese Darma Guwawi.
Windfall victories also fell to a member of the Indonesian national team, George Rimarcdi, who won without breaking a sweat because his opponent, Ge Cheng of China, failed to show up.
Chinese team manager Zhou Jincan told reporters that Ge Cheng fell ill just before departing from Beijing. Zhou declined to comment further.
Even the match between second-rate Malaysian Teng Seo Bock and Indonesia's Hendrawan, expected by bored observers to be the least interesting match of the day, resulted in a straight setter triumph for the Indonesian with 15-11, 15-10 after continuous unforced errors from both players.
Top-seed and world number one Joko Supriyanto even jokingly told newsmen that he was scheduled to meet an unknown German tourist from the street of Malioboro yesterday.
Walking his talk, Joko quickly demolished Hans Jorg Bram 15-0, 15-1 in well under one hour. There were only three changes of serves during the first set.
Practice
Bram, a 20-year-old unrated player, later told The Jakarta Post after the game that he had been practicing badminton with the Jakarta-based club Jaya Raya for the last six weeks. He said that it was part of his summer-holiday plan after his high-school graduation.
"Today I was not playing my best game," he said, as he could have finished his differently against Joko.
"After this, I want to go to university, and then it's bye-bye badminton," he said.
The International Badminton Federation (IBF), which is in the middle of a crusade to promote the sport, apparently does not care for a rigorous selection process for this so-called, prestigious event.
Meanwhile, all of Indonesian top shuttlers whipped their much inferior opponents without any apparent trouble whatsoever. Sixth-seed Alan Budikusuma trashed Singaporean Hamid Khan, an obviously over-aged, overweight contender, 15-7, 15-2.
About forty minutes later on the same court, fourth-seed Hermawan Susanto destroyed Jeffrey, a teenage Central Javanese shuttler 15-11, 15-4.
Third-seed Ardy Wiranata followed suit by punishing Nova Widianto, from the Jakarta-based club Bimantara Tangkas 15-3, 15- 4.
The same trend of one-sided plays also took place when Uber Cup heroine Mia Audina trashed her Balinese opponent Sri Martini 11-0, 11-2.
Chinese Liu Yuhong and Swede Catrine Bengtsson all destroyed their provincial opponents in straight sets.