Yayuk reaches first Asiad singles final

By Primastuti Handayani

BANGKOK (JP): Indonesia's Yayuk Basuki moved a step closer to realizing her dream of a third Asian Games gold medal after posting an upset 7-6 (7-3), 6-1 win over second seed Li Fang of China in the women's singles semifinals on Wednesday.

Li turned in a topsy-turvy performance, helping Yayuk clinch her first appearance in an Asian Games singles final.

The Indonesian world number 58 and third seed will now play top seed Tamarine Tanasugarn from the host nation, who defeated China's Yi Jing-qian 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 in the other semifinal.

It will be the first time Yayuk and Tamarine have met since the 1995 Southeast Asian Games in Chiang Mai, Thailand, 700 kilometers north of here. On that occasion, Yayuk lost to Tamarine in the final of the women's team event and pulled out of the singles, which was eventually won by the Thai girl.

"I lost to Tammy in 1995, but everything will be different tomorrow," Yayuk said optimistically.

"I'm highly motivated and I want to beat her in front of her home crowd this time around. Hopefully I won't disappoint Indonesian tennis fans," she added.

Yayuk has collected two gold medals in her three previous Asian Games appearances. The medals came in a glorious debut in the women's doubles in 1986 and in the mixed doubles in 1990. A gold in the singles on Thursday would be a fitting end to Yayuk's memorable career, which she has said will end in January, 1999.

Yayuk, who lost to Li in China's 3-0 rout of Indonesia in the women's team semifinals last week, made a number of unnecessary mistakes to go 2-4 down in the first set. However, an equally error prone Li failed to capitalize on her early lead.

Both players then upped their games to end a monotonous spell of service break exchanges as the first set advanced toward a tie-break.

Yayuk appeared the more composed of the two in the tie-break and took the set with a well placed forehand winner.

The second set then became clearly one-sided, with Li, who was battling a cough throughout the match, showing signs of nerves at many critical points.

To make matters worse, the umpire called a let on a Yayuk serve in the third game just after Li had fired off a winning forehand return.

The late call caused the Chinese girl lost her cool and she complained that the umpire had ruled against her on three close line calls. However, her tirade went unheeded and a frustrated Li never regained her composure, finishing the match with some error-strewn play.

Li's coach Zhang Xiaoning exploded after the match. "I'm very disappointed with the umpire. Several times the linesmen made bad calls and she just kept quiet. The bad calls disrupted my player's concentration. It was terrible," he said.

Despite the loss, Zhang praised Li for her efforts.

"She played good tennis even though she was suffering from a cough. She kept fighting throughout the match," he said.

Yayuk said the umpire had done a good job, but added that "the linesmen were sometimes too afraid to make a call."

A reporter from The Nation, a Thai daily newspaper, suggested that the umpire had called several decisions in Yayuk's favor because the Indonesian player was perceived as being an easier final opponent for Tamarine than Li.

In the men's singles, Satoshi Iwabuchi of Japan beat South Korea's Lee Hyung-taik 6-4, 7-5 to advance to the final. Iwabuchi will meet India's Mahesh Bhupathi who upset top seed Oleg Ogorodov of Uzbekistan 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.

In the men's doubles semifinals, The Srichaphan brothers, Paradorn and Narathorn, kept alive Thai hopes of another medal with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-1 victory over Chen Chih-jung and Lin Bing- chao of Chinese Taipei. In the final, the Thais will meet the South Korean pair of Lee Hyung-taik and Yoon Yong-il, who downed Japan's Michihisa Onoda and Takahiro Terachi 7-5, 6-1.