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.