Yayuk faces

Yayuk faces
unlucky draw
at tennis Open

JAKARTA (JP): Yayuk Basuki faces a daunting title defense
campaign at the Indonesia Open women's tennis championships as
she is tipped to meet top seed Wang Shi-ting of Chinese Taipei in
the semifinals.

Yayuk, whose world ranking has slid from 29 to 48, is expected
to clear the first hurdle in today's opening match against
teammate Natalia Soetrisno. Natalia was awarded a wildcard entry
along with compatriot Mimma Chernovita at the US$100,000 annual
event.

Wang, rated 34 in the world, will also have a warm-up match
against the Netherlands,' world-rated 201, Kim de Weille. Yayuk
bowed out to Wang in their two previous matches.

"I am dealing with heavy pressure from my own fans who insist
me that I win the tournament," Yayuk said, when asked to comment
on her chances of recapturing the winner's $18,000 cash prize.
She won the first two editions of the event.

Another seeded Indonesian player Romana Tedjakusuma will
battle it out in the bottom side with second seed Argentinian
clay-court specialist Florencia Labat and fourth ranked Katrin
Radford of Australia. Romana, placed seventh here, meets her
South Korean sparring partner Park Sung-hee today. The Indonesian
is drawn to set up a quarter-final encounter with Labat.

The tournament's was marred by several last minute's
withdrawals. German Maja Zivec-Skulj, Japanese Ai Sugiyama and
Yone Kamio pulled out the event and were replaced by Naoko
Kijimuta of Japan, American Nancy Faber and Erika de Lone
respectively.

Organizer of the championships, the Indonesian Tennis
Association (Pelti), hopes to raise the prize money up to
$175,000 next year in an attempt to get a world's top 10 player
or three players ranked in the 20s to enter the tournament. (amd)