Yayuk earns doubles title with Romana

Yayuk earns doubles title with Romana

JAKARTA (JP): Yayuk Basuki and Romana Tedjakusuma earned their
first professional women's doubles title at the Wismilak Open
tennis championships in Surabaya, East Java, without breaking
into a sweat on Sunday.

Their Japanese opponents, Kyoko Nagatsuka and Ai Sugiyama,
failed to appear since Sugiyama remained debilitated from the
illness she suffered in her unfinished singles final against
German Elena Wagner.

Sugiyama's dull, tired-looking eyes reflected her declining
health in the first set of the singles final, though she managed
to seal the set with 6-2. However, in the second, Sugiyama,
adopting a defensive strategy to stay afloat, could not hit any
point.

With her reflexes getting slower and her serves error-prone,
Sugiyama finally opted to withdraw, burst into tears and handed
Wagner a 6-0 win and the winners' US$18,000 check.

It was Wagner's second straight title in her tour here after
her triumph in the Indonesia Women's Challenger two weeks ago.
The German unseeded upset Yayuk in the quarterfinals.

"Not a surprise. It's common," Yayuk said of her $6,000 cash
prize she shared with Romana. Yayuk usually teams up with Romana
only in tennis events where national pride is at stake, such as
the Federation Cup.

It was Yayuk's third career doubles title in a $100,000
tournament. She earned her first and second titles with her
Japanese long-time partner Nana Miyagi consecutively in Japan and
Taiwan last year.

To compensate the waiting 1,000-strong home crowd for the
walkover, the championship's organizer presented an exhibition
match between Yayuk/Romana and Nagatsuka/Wagner. The home pair
beat the Japanese-German pair 6-4 in the entertaining match.
(arf)