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SEA Games: Indonesian tennis ace Aldila holds on to Grand Slam dream
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Indonesian tennis player Aldila Sutjiadi plays against Savanna Ly-Nguyen of Vietnam during their women's singles final match in the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in Manila, Philippines on Friday, Dec. 6, 2019. She won 6-0, 7-5 to earn gold medal. (Reuters/Eloisa Lopez)
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n spite of limited funding, Indonesian tennis player Aldila Sutjiadi is holding on to her dream of competing at the Grand Slam level as she sets sights on the biggest tournaments next year.
Aldila is the country’s women’s singles player with the highest ranking at 356th of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). She reached her career-highest rank of 347th in November, almost a decade after turning pro in 2010.
The 24-year-old expressed her desire to compete at Grand Slam tournaments – the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open -- after winning gold at the 2019 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games in the women’ singles event on Friday.
“Next year, I want to be able to penetrate the top 200 and play at the Grand Slams. [It seems] that the closest Grand Slam I could play at is Roland Garros [the French Open] or Wimbledon,” she said.
Throughout the 2019 season, Aldila has been fighting to increase her singles and doubles ranking by competing at numerous tournaments.
Her hard work and persistence have started to show results as she climbed up the world’s singles ranking to the 400s from her previous ranking at 664. Her doubles ranking is 168th.
Of all 23 tournaments she joined this year, Aldila managed to qualify in two WTA tournaments, namely the Jiangxi Open in September, where she reached the final match of the qualification round, as well as November’s Taipei 125K, where she reached the main round.
