Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Last Year This Week

Regardless her postur and weak serve, at 278 in the WTA rankings Ayu Fani Damayanti is the highest ranked Indonesian tennis player today. I am always enthusiastic following Ayu's performance in international tennis forums.

Having played her third main draw in Bali in September last year, Ayu Fani Damayanti continued her good performance at the Philippines ITF women's circuits. She grabbed two ITF circuit titles despite her low ranks of 733 and 727.

At the second week in Manila, Ayu defeated the top seed, Sacha Jones (then ranked number 337) of New Zealand 6-4 6-1 (H2H) in the final. Ayu played perfect games in the course of two weeks without loosing a set.

Today Sacha Jones has made her biggest leap to 168 from last week 212 in the WTA rankings after winning three Australian challenger (Mount Gambier, Port Pirie, Rock Hill) 25K tournaments in a row and a 50K tournament in Phoenix, USA.

Where is Ayu? Within the last two months Ayu didn't play any ITF tournaments. She played at local tournaments in Tegal and Jakarta. I have not seen any official reason why she didn't enter challenger tournaments or at least the circuits in Manila. The only possible guess I have is that Ayu needs to collect money from this easy-winning local tournaments.

If Ayu is given a financial support to travel from challenger to challenger and try her luck at higher tournaments, It is not possible that she could be in the Top 200 this year. I am stil hoping that someday someone would invest in Ayu and helped her join the Top 150. Nothing is impossible for this smart tactician girl.

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