Women players want to stand up and be counted
Women players want to stand up and be counted
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
When it comes to strategy for the Sudirman Cup mixed team competition next week, the national women's players barely earn a mention.
The focus is squarely on securing victory from the men's singles players, men's doubles and mixed pairings in Beijing on May 10-15.
For their part, the women are content to wait until the big day to prove themselves.
"Being the underdog is good for us because we can play with nothing to lose," singles player Fransisca Ratnasari said on Thursday after the announcement of the Indonesian team at the National Training Center in Cipayung, East Jakarta.
The squad consists of men's singles players Taufik Hidayat, Sony Dwi Kuncoro and Simon Santoso; Fransisca and Adrianti Firdasari (women's singles); Candra Wijaya/Sigit Budiarto, Luluk Hadiyanto/Alvent Yulianto (men's doubles); Jo Novita/Greysia Polii (women's doubles); Nova Widianto/Lilyana Natsir (mixed doubles), as well as women's doubles player Lita Nurlita and Flandy Limpele, who may be called upon to double up in men's and mixed doubles.
In the round-robin format, Indonesia is with host China, Sweden and Hong Kong in one group. Defending champion South Korea is in the second group with Denmark, England and Thailand.
Officials expect Indonesia to advance with China to the semifinals as one of the two teams from their group, but the burden of responsibility has been given to the men.
It's in contrast to the heyday of Susy Susanti and Mia Audina in the 1990s, when the two women's singles players were depended on to take matches.
In the inaugural year of the championship in 1989 in Jakarta, Susy kept the final tie alive by beating South Korean Lee Young Suk after the hosts trailed 0-2 in the best-of-five-match contest. Indonesia went on to win the title for the first and so far only time.
With Susy retired and Mia a naturalized Dutch citizen, no women have emerged to replace them at the top of the game.
Still, the women players say they also want to stand up and be counted in the cup campaign.
Fransisca and Adrianti said they believed they could contribute a win against Sweden, but it would be a tougher proposition against Hong Kong and China.
Hong Kong has the talented Wang Chen, while China, with an array of excellent players to choose from, will probably field Xie Xingfang and Zhang Ning.
Adrianti noted that Wang could be outplayed.
"I lost to Wang Chen in the All England this year (11-5, 11- 3), but at least we know her weakness, which is committing errors in long rallies," Adrianti said.
Women's doubles player Greysia Polii, who will make her Sudirman Cup debut, said she would try her best against the formidable Chinese women.
"Against Sweden, we could win, while against Hong Kong, it will be a good match because they have good women's players," she said.
"But the Chinese women's shuttlers are better than us. However, if I lose, I will make sure they are seriously tested."
If Indonesia does get through to the semifinal, it may then be up to the women to play a crucial role.
Indonesia would dearly like to play Denmark in the last four, instead of the difficult, evenly matched South Koreans.
Denmark, boasting strong men's singles, men's doubles and mixed pairings, shares the same predicament as Indonesia with its relatively weak women's players.
Men's singles coach Joko Suprianto said the women could overcome their Danish counterparts, especially with last year's retirement of former world and All-England champion Camilla Martin.
"Denmark has problems among its women's shuttlers. If we meet them in the semifinal, our women shuttlers could steal points from them, thus easing the task for the men," he said in late April.