Silvi battles against odds at Milo junior meet
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
Reigning champion Silvi Antarini has dealt the ongoing Milo Junior Indonesia Open badminton championships a blow with her mockery of both the seeding calculation and the country's badminton-governing body, PBSI, in her defeat of pretournament favorite Dewi Tira Arisandi here.
The former national junior was the 2001 champion but she has fallen outside the top eight, which is dominated by the current national squad, following her lack of competitive activity for almost four months ahead of the event.
Silvi was removed from the national lineup after only one year in the training camp for disciplinary reasons.
But the 18-year-old, who is only rated ninth out of 16 at the tournament, proved the calculation was wrong and signaled she still deserved a place in the national squad, with her 11-0, 11-1 win over Dewi at the Sudirman Sports Hall.
As the score shows, Silvi totally dominated the match, winning rallies with her sharp drives and cutting drop shots, which caused her opponent to lose all idea of how to improve her play.
"I was at a loss, my power deserted me," Dewi said, her eyes downcast dejectedly.
Silvi's victory also revealed her domination over her former training mate in their head-to-head matches. In their 18 meetings Silvi has lost only once, in Surabaya in 1998, when both were at the outset of their badminton careers.
However, Silvi did not appear to heed the ratings. Neither was she preoccupied about her hopes in the competition after her 2001 triumph.
"I had no intention of defending the title. The 2001 championship was a year behind. What I have in mind is that I just want to play as well as possible," she told The Jakarta Post after the match, her father IGM Sumandra beside her.
Starting to play badminton when seven years of age, Silvi began to show her prowess at local competitions in Jakarta from early 1993 onward. She was recruited to the national training camp in Cipayung, East Jakarta in March 2001 and promptly paid off the move, winning a bronze medal at the Asian Junior Championships in Taiwan the same year, while her teammates fell at the wayside.
Another unforgettable moment she would like to savor was her victory at the Asian Students Championships in the Philippines early this year.
But days after her Philippines triumph, she was booted out of the training camp, in a way she considered rather unfair.
It happened when Silvi was persuaded to enter a local competition in West Sumatra, the provincial origin of her mother, and was deemed to have violated the rules as she went without having asked the permission of the training camp's officials.
While saying she had asked someone to seek permission on her behalf, she admitted her mistake in not doing it personally. But she regretted the fact that PBSI officials did not give her a chance to explain herself.