Sunu beats Ocvirk to defend Salonpas title

Sunu beats Ocvirk to defend Salonpas title

Zakki Hakim
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

Young Indonesian star Sunu Wahyu Trijati won the 2004 Salonpas
International Junior Tennis Championships for the second
consecutive year after he beat second seed Luka Ocvirk of
Slovenia 6-3, 6-3 at the Kemayoran Tennis Center on Saturday.

However, teaming up with Thai Weerapat Doakmaiklee in
the men's doubles final, Sunu failed to achieve a double victory,
as their contending pair, Japanese Takanobu Fujii/Lai Xiao Peng
of Hong Kong upset them 6-4, 6-2.

Saturday's final also saw top seed Hsu Wen Hsin of
Chinese Taipei defeat second seed Pichitra Thongdach of Thailand
6-4, 7-5 to win the girls' singles title.

Indonesian pair Septi Mende/Maya Rosa, however, gave
the home fans something more to cheer about, by winning the
girl's doubles final when they defeated second seed pair Tatjana
Malek of Germany and Stefanie Rath of Austria.

During the men's singles final, Sunu broke Ocvirk in
the fourth game of the first set to take a 3-1 lead, from where
the defending champion dominated the set to win 6-3.

Unlike in the first set, when both contenders depended mostly
on their physical strength by hitting hard strokes, the second
set saw Sunu perform a tactical game.

The 193-centimeter-tall Ocvirk often tumbled in chasing Sunu's
well-positioned balls.

A height disadvantage -- Sunu is only 168cm tall -- apparently
did not matter, as the Indonesian's tactical play soon paid off.

In no time Sunu reached a 5-1 lead before he broke his
opponent in the ninth game to wrap up the match 6-3, 6-3.

The Slovenian played a careless second set as he made
at least six double faults and several unforced errors.

Sunu's match point was from Ocvirk's failure to return
the Indonesian's punishing forehand.

"Sunu was too good, while I didn't move well," Ocvirk
said, blaming the hot weather for his defeat, particularly for
his failure in anticipating Sunu's ball positioning.

Meanwhile, Sunu admitted that he also made a couple
of unforced errors, although not as significant as Ocvirk's.

"But I won a lot of points from his mistakes,"
he said.

He said that he was happy with his win and hoped that
it could boost his world junior ranking from 159 back to the top
100.

"Maybe it is not enough to push me into the top 50,
but I hope it could put me into the 60s," he said.