Those three players decided to hang up their rackets to focus on their lives outside the court.

Christopher “Christo” Rungkat once sparked hope after he won the French Open’s men’s doubles in 2008, but he has yet to produce a stellar performance on the senior level.

His attempt to try the tight competition in grand slams has not been fruitful as he stopped at the first qualifying round of the 2013 Australian Open in the men’s singles and was thrown out at the first qualifying rounds at Wimbledon in 2017 and 2018 in the doubles’ category.

Now, Christo, who just won a gold medal in the mixed doubles at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, is still trying to knit his career together by focusing more on the doubles’ sector, playing in some Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) matches. He is now at 84th position in the ATP world doubles ranking.

Another hope for Indonesian tennis arose when Tami Grende won the Wimbledon’s girls’ doubles in 2014. Partnered with China’s Yu Ye Qiu, Tami snatched the title in the tournament where Angelique Widjaja won the singles’ title in 2001.

However, Tami’s name is now off the radar as, according to the Women Tennis Association (WTA) and International Tennis Federation (ITF), she is currently not active.

In this year’s Australian Open, Indonesian tennis prodigy Priska Madelyn Nugroho is going to compete in the junior category. She currently resides in the 44th position of the ITF world ranking. She was the runner-up of the Asian Junior Tennis Championship last year in India.

Former tennis player Wynne Prakusya acknowledged that Priska is currently the best player in the junior category. She hoped the youngster could maintain her career to reach the top level.

“I am hoping that she is motivated to enhance her career, exceeding the juniors like Yayuk, Angie and me,” she told The Jakarta Post.

Despite Priska’s ability to find her own way to the Grand Slams, the struggle is real for the Indonesian Tennis Federation (PELTI) to put the country’s tennis players on the international stage.

Classic problems like a lack of sponsors and a poor quality of tennis players are among the challenges that are faced by the federation to bring forth a number of good tennis players.

Wynne explained that there were three major challenges faced by the country’s tennis players in developing their careers.

“Those challenges are physical features, level of experience and the low mental strength of the players,” said Wynne, who was the runner-up of the 1998 Australian Open juniors.

“Lack of funding has also become the main problem. It is related to the level of experience as funding determines how many tournaments a player can participate in,” she added, explaining that US$100,000 per year is not enough for a tennis player to enter tournaments.

Wynne, who is busy assisting young talents to find sponsors, further explained that a lack of funding was also often related to the player’s physical features as many of the sponsors have been reluctant to support players who failed to meet certain height requirements.