INDONESIAN OPEN: WONDERTEEN FALLS TO YONG

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October 31, 1998 (NEW SHUTTLENWS) - Indonesian teenaged wonder Taufik Hidayat ended up one match short of the men's singles final at the Indonesian Open badminton championships being staged this week at the Senayan sports complex in Jakarta. Hidayat who had pulled off an upset of top seed Hendrawan to get to the semifinal stage was defeated by Yong Hock Kin of Malaysia 10-15 and 4-15 today.

Hidayat and Yong had a good match going early in the first set when they played even-up at 7-all. Hidayat's shots though started to fail him at this point while Yong kept playing well specially at the net. Yong began to pull away and won the first game 15-10.

Yong kept control of the play in the second set while Hidayat remained unable to respond to the Malaysian's shot combinations and placements.

After the match, Hidayat commented that he became quite frustrated in the second game at his inability to handle Yong's shots specially at the net.

With his victory, the third-seeded Yong moves on into tomorrow's championship match where he will play Indonesia's Budi Santoso.

Santoso gained his spot in the finals with an upset win over the second-seeded Poul-Erik Hoyer of Denmark today. Santoso beat the hot-and-cold Dane in two closely fought sets.

Hoyer's play failed him specially in the later parts of both games. He dropped the first game after a three-point tiebreak 17-14. In the second set, the Dane moved to a commanding 9-2 advantage but he was not able to maintain the pace. Santoso played his way back into the match and closed in on Hoyer's lead 10-12.

Hoyer then scored twice to get to set point 14-10 and had a game-winning shot all set up. However he smashed the shuttle out-of-bounds to turn the service over.

Santoso was then able to induce Hoyer into several errors to move even closer at 13-14. The Indonesian player followed with another point to force deuce and a second three-point tiebreak.

Santoso took the setting 3-0 (17-14) to win the match and a spot in the final.

In the women's singles semifinals, top-seeded Mia Audina of Indonesia had an error-prone start but came back to beat teammate Cindana Hartono 9-11, 11-4 and 11-7 with an aggressive smash-and-drive game. Second-seed Mette Sorensen of Denmark prevailed over Meiluawati of Indonesia 11-8 and 13-12.

Results of the doubles semifinals:

Men's Doubles
Rexy Mainaky/Ricky Subagja (Indonesia) beat Chandra Wijaya/Tony Gunawan (Indonesia) 13-15, 15-2, 15-9
Flandy Limpele/Hian Eng (Indonesia) beat Denny Kantono/Antonius Budi Iriantho (Indonesia) 15-9, 15-10

Women's Doubles
Elisa Nathanael/Deyana Lomban (Indonesia) beat Indarti Isolina/Carmelita (Indonesia) 15-12, 7-15, 15-8
Rikke Olsen/Marlene Thomsen (Denmark) beat Etti Tantri/Cintya Tuwankotta (Indonesia) 15-10, 15-5

Mixed Doubles
Michael Sogaard/Rikke Olsen (Denmark) beat Sandiarto/Etti Tantri (Indonesia) 15-10, 15-2
Trikus Heryanto/Minarti Timur (Indonesia) beat Bambang Suprianto/Resiana Zelin (Indonesia) 15-5, 15-3

(lpp/ds)

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