Post by janie on Dec 4, 2008 21:06:28 GMT -5
copied from wtaworld:
A new profile of Yayuk Basuki on her return to tennis, from the WEEKENDER magazine of The Jakarta Post newspaper, Jakarta Indonesia.
Yayuk Basuki: Back on Court
The Jakarta Post -- WEEKENDER | Sun, 11/23/2008 1:21 PM | Profile
When former world top 20 tennis player Yayuk Basuki retired from the sport in 2001, she expected to coach and take care of her young son. A return to tournament play was not in her plans but today, at the age of 38, she is back competing and winning. She tells Bruce Emond why she came back.
Most of the young players who face Yayuk Basuki know nothing about the Indonesian player with the funny-sounding name, powerful forehand and that rarity in today’s game, a one-handed backhand.
The one-time world number 19 singles star – a Wimbledon quarterfinalist who won six WTA Tour singles titles and US$1.6 million in prize money – has nothing to prove to the younger players. Still, it’s nice to put them in their place with her doubles partner Romana Tedjakusuma, also a veteran in the sport at age 32.
“I feel so old,” Yayuk jokes in an e-mail interview from a tournament in the United States.
“Most of the girls don’t know me but the tour staff do, so when they mention who I am, the girls are shocked, because they didn’t know I was that old.”
She adds, with some satisfaction, “Especially the girls who get beaten – they are so embarrassed.”
Yayuk calls her comeback her “third career”. A tennis prodigy who learned the game from her policeman father in Yogyakarta, her talent was recognized early and she was schooled at the Ragunan Sports Academy in Jakarta.
She played the international junior circuit only infrequently, but she made up for lost time by quickly breaking into the world’s top 50 in 1992. She chalked up impressive wins over some of the top players of her era – Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, Iva Majoli, Martina Hingis and Gabriela Sabatini, among others – and reached a ranking of 9th in women’s doubles. She also won the Asian Games gold medal in 1998.
Married to her coach Suharyadi, she gave birth to a son in 1999 but returned to the circuit the following year and won two top level doubles tournaments before retiring in 2001. She continued to play occasionally in local level tournaments and coached several young players.
Her decision to return to playing doubles with Romana shocked many, and there was speculation about her reasons. Perhaps it was because of money, some said, or was she copying the example of Dutch player Brenda Schultz-McCarthy, who returned two years ago at the age of 36? Or was it because of the sorry state of Indonesian tennis today?
All wrong, says Yayuk, who turns 38 on November 30. She says her return was motivated by very personal reasons. Over the past few years, she had coached several young junior players, was a tournament organizer, did TV commentary, became an adviser to the sports and youth affairs minister and raised her son.
But she continued to follow the goings-on in the sport, and sometimes the yearning would emerge. A naturally gifted player with an athletic all-court game, she would watch a player like dogged baseliner Anastasia Myskina winning a Grand Slam and think that, perhaps, she could still compete. It was just a passing thought, quickly forgotten amid her current commitments.
Then, in 2007 she got serious about making a return.
“I’m motivated by the love of the game, and to stay healthy. I never thought I would come back, even to play doubles,” she says.
Although she admits that not everybody in her family was supportive of her (she is the youngest of five children), her husband and son gave her their blessing. “It’s hard to be away from them, but we communicate all the time.”
Yayuk is known as someone who follows her heart and has firm convictions (she has famously butted heads with the national tennis association on more than one occasion when she disagreed with their decisions). It might be called stubbornness by her detractors, but her fans praise her determination and single-mindedness to pursue a successful tennis career in a country where sport receives little government support.
Resolve is one thing, but standing up to the firepower of today’s game is another. Even in the late 1990s, as the power-hitting baseline battalion of the Williams sisters, Davenport and Jennifer Capriati took over, Yayuk’s stylish game stood out as a curious anomaly. Since then, versatility and finesse have been shunted aside by the power game.
“You can hit the ball as hard as you want these days and it still goes in,” Martina Navratilova told the WEEKENDER in 2008 about today’s improved technology.
“Actually, my style of play can still exist today,” Yayuk says. “Yes, I’m stylish, but I hit the ball hard, too, when I need it. But I’m playing more with my head, more efficient, more tactical strategy … so the girls can see that it’s not only hard hitting that wins matches.”
She said fitness was more of an issue at the outset as she had to return to the demands of tournament play “from zero … I wasn’t fat, I was skinny, but I had no muscle. I’ve had to work so hard at that.”
The hard work has paid off. The Indonesian pair has enjoyed impressive results on the ITF circuit, which is one step below the main WTA Tour. Their best result was as finalists at a US$50,000 tournament in the United States. They have won two US$25,000 tournaments in the United States and Germany (Yayuk also won a US$10,000 event in Thailand with Australian Tiffany Welford).
Yayuk was ranked 285 in the world in doubles in early November.
But she laments that women’s tennis has changed for the worse. She related to me in a 2000 interview the camaraderie of the women’s tour, with players such as Pierce, Navratilova and Yayuk’s close friend Conchita Martinez swapping stories over dinner during tournaments.
“It has been rough and boring, because everything is so money-oriented, it’s all about business, so there is no sportsmanship and fun on the court with these girls,” says the two-time winner of the player-voted Karen Krantzcke sportsmanship award.
“The players only think about money, especially the teenagers, and nobody teaches them manners … The system made them.”
The US$25,000 tournament in Augusta in October was a clean sweep for Indonesia, with Sandy Gumulya winning the singles, and Yayuk–Romana taking the doubles. But Indonesia, once one of the strongest tennis nations in Asia, is no longer a force in the region. Her hoped for successor, former Wimbledon junior champion Angelique Widjaja, retired from the game last year at the age of 24.
“It’s hard to answer,” Yayuk says about what is plaguing Indonesian tennis. “Because they don’t want to take input as advice, because they always think they know better about tennis.”
For now, she is just playing for the love of the game. Her goal is to play a major tournament again, preferably Wimbledon where she enjoyed her best Grand Slam results.
She is not putting a time frame on when she will hang up her racket for a third time.
“As long as I’m healthy, I’ll keep playing,” she says.
A new profile of Yayuk Basuki on her return to tennis, from the WEEKENDER magazine of The Jakarta Post newspaper, Jakarta Indonesia.
Yayuk Basuki: Back on Court
The Jakarta Post -- WEEKENDER | Sun, 11/23/2008 1:21 PM | Profile
When former world top 20 tennis player Yayuk Basuki retired from the sport in 2001, she expected to coach and take care of her young son. A return to tournament play was not in her plans but today, at the age of 38, she is back competing and winning. She tells Bruce Emond why she came back.
Most of the young players who face Yayuk Basuki know nothing about the Indonesian player with the funny-sounding name, powerful forehand and that rarity in today’s game, a one-handed backhand.
The one-time world number 19 singles star – a Wimbledon quarterfinalist who won six WTA Tour singles titles and US$1.6 million in prize money – has nothing to prove to the younger players. Still, it’s nice to put them in their place with her doubles partner Romana Tedjakusuma, also a veteran in the sport at age 32.
“I feel so old,” Yayuk jokes in an e-mail interview from a tournament in the United States.
“Most of the girls don’t know me but the tour staff do, so when they mention who I am, the girls are shocked, because they didn’t know I was that old.”
She adds, with some satisfaction, “Especially the girls who get beaten – they are so embarrassed.”
Yayuk calls her comeback her “third career”. A tennis prodigy who learned the game from her policeman father in Yogyakarta, her talent was recognized early and she was schooled at the Ragunan Sports Academy in Jakarta.
She played the international junior circuit only infrequently, but she made up for lost time by quickly breaking into the world’s top 50 in 1992. She chalked up impressive wins over some of the top players of her era – Lindsay Davenport, Mary Pierce, Iva Majoli, Martina Hingis and Gabriela Sabatini, among others – and reached a ranking of 9th in women’s doubles. She also won the Asian Games gold medal in 1998.
Married to her coach Suharyadi, she gave birth to a son in 1999 but returned to the circuit the following year and won two top level doubles tournaments before retiring in 2001. She continued to play occasionally in local level tournaments and coached several young players.
Her decision to return to playing doubles with Romana shocked many, and there was speculation about her reasons. Perhaps it was because of money, some said, or was she copying the example of Dutch player Brenda Schultz-McCarthy, who returned two years ago at the age of 36? Or was it because of the sorry state of Indonesian tennis today?
All wrong, says Yayuk, who turns 38 on November 30. She says her return was motivated by very personal reasons. Over the past few years, she had coached several young junior players, was a tournament organizer, did TV commentary, became an adviser to the sports and youth affairs minister and raised her son.
But she continued to follow the goings-on in the sport, and sometimes the yearning would emerge. A naturally gifted player with an athletic all-court game, she would watch a player like dogged baseliner Anastasia Myskina winning a Grand Slam and think that, perhaps, she could still compete. It was just a passing thought, quickly forgotten amid her current commitments.
Then, in 2007 she got serious about making a return.
“I’m motivated by the love of the game, and to stay healthy. I never thought I would come back, even to play doubles,” she says.
Although she admits that not everybody in her family was supportive of her (she is the youngest of five children), her husband and son gave her their blessing. “It’s hard to be away from them, but we communicate all the time.”
Yayuk is known as someone who follows her heart and has firm convictions (she has famously butted heads with the national tennis association on more than one occasion when she disagreed with their decisions). It might be called stubbornness by her detractors, but her fans praise her determination and single-mindedness to pursue a successful tennis career in a country where sport receives little government support.
Resolve is one thing, but standing up to the firepower of today’s game is another. Even in the late 1990s, as the power-hitting baseline battalion of the Williams sisters, Davenport and Jennifer Capriati took over, Yayuk’s stylish game stood out as a curious anomaly. Since then, versatility and finesse have been shunted aside by the power game.
“You can hit the ball as hard as you want these days and it still goes in,” Martina Navratilova told the WEEKENDER in 2008 about today’s improved technology.
“Actually, my style of play can still exist today,” Yayuk says. “Yes, I’m stylish, but I hit the ball hard, too, when I need it. But I’m playing more with my head, more efficient, more tactical strategy … so the girls can see that it’s not only hard hitting that wins matches.”
She said fitness was more of an issue at the outset as she had to return to the demands of tournament play “from zero … I wasn’t fat, I was skinny, but I had no muscle. I’ve had to work so hard at that.”
The hard work has paid off. The Indonesian pair has enjoyed impressive results on the ITF circuit, which is one step below the main WTA Tour. Their best result was as finalists at a US$50,000 tournament in the United States. They have won two US$25,000 tournaments in the United States and Germany (Yayuk also won a US$10,000 event in Thailand with Australian Tiffany Welford).
Yayuk was ranked 285 in the world in doubles in early November.
But she laments that women’s tennis has changed for the worse. She related to me in a 2000 interview the camaraderie of the women’s tour, with players such as Pierce, Navratilova and Yayuk’s close friend Conchita Martinez swapping stories over dinner during tournaments.
“It has been rough and boring, because everything is so money-oriented, it’s all about business, so there is no sportsmanship and fun on the court with these girls,” says the two-time winner of the player-voted Karen Krantzcke sportsmanship award.
“The players only think about money, especially the teenagers, and nobody teaches them manners … The system made them.”
The US$25,000 tournament in Augusta in October was a clean sweep for Indonesia, with Sandy Gumulya winning the singles, and Yayuk–Romana taking the doubles. But Indonesia, once one of the strongest tennis nations in Asia, is no longer a force in the region. Her hoped for successor, former Wimbledon junior champion Angelique Widjaja, retired from the game last year at the age of 24.
“It’s hard to answer,” Yayuk says about what is plaguing Indonesian tennis. “Because they don’t want to take input as advice, because they always think they know better about tennis.”
For now, she is just playing for the love of the game. Her goal is to play a major tournament again, preferably Wimbledon where she enjoyed her best Grand Slam results.
She is not putting a time frame on when she will hang up her racket for a third time.
“As long as I’m healthy, I’ll keep playing,” she says.