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French Open glory for Indonesian junior player
Having waited for more than six years since Angelique Widjaja became the first Indonesian to win a junior Grand Slam championship -- at the 2001 Wimbledon, followed by the 2002 French Open Junior, plus a girls' doubles title at the 2002 Australian Open -- Indonesia now has another junior Grand Slam champion: Christopher Rungkat
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Having waited for more than six years since Angelique Widjaja became the first Indonesian to win a junior Grand Slam championship -- at the 2001 Wimbledon, followed by the 2002 French Open Junior, plus a girls' doubles title at the 2002 Australian Open -- Indonesia now has another junior Grand Slam champion: Christopher Rungkat.
Pairing with Henri Kontinen of Finland, with an International Tennis Federation's combined ranking of 22, Christopher, ranked 40 in world's juniors, showed his experience in playing doubles.
In the final, they managed to keep focused on each point and convincingly destroyed the German-Australian duo of Jaan-Frederik Brunken and Matt Reid in straight sets, 6-0, 6-3.
At the beginning of the tournament only a few people predicted that Christopher and Henri would go very far, particularly with their difficult draw.
The top seeded pair of Henrique Cunha of Brazil and Cesar Ramirez of Mexico was waiting on the other side of the net in the first match.
However, the unseeded boys took a giant step toward the title by beating the top seeds.
Their next opponents were the lower ranked French pair of Romain Sichez (167) and Wang Tak-Khunn (481). Despite home crowd support, Kontinen-Rungkat won the match handily, 6-4, 6-2.
In the quarterfinals, they had to play the Australian Open junior doubles champion from Chinese Taipei, Yang Tsung-Hua (21) and Hsieh Cheng-Peng (68). It was a repeat of the final of the 44th Astrid Bowl, a Grade 1 international junior championships in Charleroi, Belgium, the previous week. The Taiwanese put up a good fight, but as they did in Charleroi, Kontinen-Rungkat finished the match in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4.
The semifinal match was not as easy, with the Finnish-Indonesian duo taking on the Canadian pair of Vasek Pospisil (45) and Milos Raonic (50). The first set went to a tie breaker, which Kontinen-Rungkat won 7-3, before taking the second set 6-2.
Entering Court 2 of Roland Garros for the boy's doubles final, Christopher and Henri were ready for their first junior Grand Slam title.
Christopher may have fallen in the first round of the boy's singles to David Goffin of Belgium, seeded 16, but the loss did not stop him from winning the boy's doubles title.
Now Indonesia can smile as Christopher Rungkat follows the success of Angelique Widjaja. The junior Grand Slam doubles title holder looks ready to revive the barren national tennis scene.
