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)