Yves Lacroix recently covered the Indonesia Open for Badmintonphoto and BWF. As the Chief Editor of the Quebec version of Badzine, Yves had a lot to do in Jakarta as he was the sole representative of the team in Indonesia. Here are his memories of the Djarum Indonesia Open.


902.81. After one week at the Singapore Open, that’s how many kilometres I had to travel to get to my next assignment, namely the 2008 Djarum Indonesia Open. Leaving my partner and great friend Raphaël in the small republic, I was to be all alone to cover - both for BadmintonPhoto (BP) as a photographer and for the BWF as a journalist - the last Super Series before the Beijing Olympics. To my great shame, even after all these years covering badminton at various international tournaments, I had never set foot in our sport’s Mecca, the famous Istora Senayan. This cruel fact became even more painful when I had to turn down an invitation to cover the Thomas and Uber Cups (TUC) in May. To make things worse, everybody in Singapore seemed to collude to keep reminding me of how great the TUC had been. Argh.
 

Before leaving for Jakarta, Raphael had previously introduced me to PBSI’s Mimi Irawan, whose help quickly became immensely valuable. Upon my arrival at the airport, a very kind organizer arranged transportation to the luxurious Sultan, the official hotel of the tournament. I had to wait a few minutes so he could gather enough players for transportation to the city. The wait proved to be a godsend when I saw a Japanese threesome composed of cuties Hirose, Ogura and Shiota come out of customs. Oh boy, there’s my chance, I whispered to myself. Despite my shyness, I had absolutely no moral problems with taking advantage of a waiting Kumiko Ogura with whom I chatted for 5 or 10 minutes even though her English is almost as limited as my Japanese. What a great introduction to the Indonesia Open, I said to myself while eyeing her partners Hirose and Shiota in the distance.

About one hour later, I was throwing my luggage on the floor of room 1166 of the five-star Sultan, a room which is almost as large as my small apartment in Montréal. The arrival at the hotel is when the real fun begins: instead of relaxing like a normal person would do, a BP photographer has no choice but to connect to the internet and prepare the following day which would begin at 10:00 AM. With the draw in hand, we BP slaves have to decide which players to shoot and which pictures to send the following day. Part of the routine is also to charge the camera batteries, especially for those first long days during which you literally take thousands of pictures.

Starting block

9.00 AM, Tuesday June 17. Only one hour to go before the official start of the Djarum Indonesia Open. Just enough time to take a quick shower and eat whatever I was able to grab at the convenience store the previous night. In accordance with BP’s motto - ‘first ones in, last ones out’ - I left the hotel on foot to be the first one at the media center.

A very sweet lady, Dian, greeted me and handed me over the pass that would allow me to go to the courts of the most famous badminton stadium on planet Earth. Unfortunately, she also handed me a very uncomfortable plastic vest which is the worst idea for a sweat pig like me in a tropical country such as Indonesia. In any case, stepping inside the stadium, I was surprised to see hundreds of fans already on hand to support a herd of Indonesian players trying to survive a tough qualifying day. ‘Already lots of atmosphere, this will be great,’ was my reaction. I quickly realized that the atmosphere of the tournament would be at least equal to the Batam-based 2003 Indonesia Open I last attended.

I am one of the luckiest photographers in the world, I often say. One of the reasons for such a statement is how well local players perform at the tournaments I cover. No superstition here: just a very pleasant coincidence. Indeed, with the absence of Taufik and many other stars, I was afraid to attend – let’s face it - a quite boring Super Series, due to the end of the Olympic qualifying period. Thanks in part to the great performances by Maria Kristin, Sony Dwi Kuncoro and the incredible pairs of Shendy Suspa Irawati/Meiliana Jauhari and Vita Marissa/Lilyana Natsir who all had the great idea to make it at least to the semi-finals, I would have all the atmosphere I could ever dream of.

Kristin leads Indonesian charge

Kristin was the most outstanding player of the tournament and became the drum major of an incredible field of Indonesian players. She beat a fellow Indonesian and three Chinese-born players in a row before going down to Zhu Lin in an exciting three-game affair on finals day. Wow, to say the least. It was not only great fun to see her win in front of her fans but also very pleasant to watch her natural and charming demeanour at the press conferences. With such a beautiful smile, she could make me vote for George W. Bush if she wanted to.

Kristin’s 21-14, 20-22, 22-20 match against Zhang Ning in the semis will remain my favourite of the tournament. Kristin was on fire against a poor Zhang Ning who once again struggled – as she had a few months earlier in Paris – against doubtful line calls in favour of her opponent. Action, guts, controversy and a very tight score: it was the perfect recipe for an unforgettable match.

I usually don’t really care from which country a player is as long as I get to see exciting badminton. That being said, however, I couldn’t help but being excited by the fact that three out of five Chinese players or pairs went down to Indonesians in the semi-finals.

Total domination from a player or country is, I agree, never good news for any given sport. Now, with all these upsets - even in events traditionally dominated by the Chinese such as women’s doubles and singles - the Beijing games should become more open to upsets than we would have ever dreamt of just two or three years ago.

A Super Series is always the scene of some great matches which – due to the absence of a TV crew - will only live in the memories of the people who were lucky enough to witness them. Apart from the above-mentioned Indonesians, I’m thinking of Jan Jorgensen’s incredible run to the quarter-finals. I will never forget the face he made when he ousted compatriot Peter Gade in the second round. The youngster was clearly living a dream and was still shocked when I interviewed him 15 minutes after his victory.

I’m also thinking of my good friend Charmaine Reid who made it to the second round with her friend Nicole Grether in women’s doubles. Their first-round win earned both players the privilege of playing against Marissa and Natsir on the TV court. Local broadcaster TransTV was kind enough to provide Charmaine and Nicole with a DVD of their match. Nice touch. Charmaine and Nicole were also the focus of some local newspaper articles due to their sexy black outfits: so much for the cliché about Indonesia being the largest Muslim country in the world.

Another memorable moment I was going to forget: Maria Febe Kusumastuti’s match point against semi-finalist Pi Hongyan in the first round. Who knows how far this young Indonesian beauty would have gone if she had won the match? Can’t wait to see this young fighter in action again.

Friendliness...

I’m sure many journalists and photographers with agree with the following statement: memories of a tournament are usually equally divided between the action on court and the social encounters off-court. Of the latter, the Indonesians’ simplicity and natural kindness towards BuGils (foreigners) always sticks with me when leaving Indonesia. Apart from the very annoying habit of calling every male foreigner ‘boss’ (I work for a trade union, dammit!), locals are always keen to salute you, help you, or whatever the situation calls for. In the middle of a packed press conference, coach Hendrawan even apologized out loud to the only foreign journalist in the room – yes, me - for conducting the interviews in Indonesian which was, needless to say, the only logical thing to do with Indonesian-speaking media at an Indonesian tournament… in Indonesia!

The folks at the media center were a perfect example of the above-mentioned kindness. They were all very helpful, especially my charming friend Dian who helped me, among many other things, with translation during press conferences, my bahasa still needing some improvement. Dian’s deep brown eyes and contagious smile will remain my fondest memory of the media center. PBSI’s Mimi Irawan also deserves a very special thank you as she always made sure that my every need would be cared for.

On a personal level, the 2008 Djarum Indonesia Open will remain the start of what I’m sure will become a strong and durable friendship with French umpire Gilles Cavert. I will never be able to go back to the Indonesia Open without thinking of the good times we had during those hot Jakarta nights. For the record, Gilles became the first umpire in Super Series history to be told by a photographer – yes, me again - to watch out for a roaming cat (!) around the court.

After two weeks of Super Series badminton came the dreadful moment: the trip back home. In my case, we’re talking about a 20-hour flight with three stops, namely Singapore, Frankfurt and, last but not least, New York. Luckily, the length of the trip was compensated by the always stunning Singapore Airlines stewardesses. As expected, the New York stop proved to be the most painful. If you want to have fun – please take note of the irony - just take the nightmarish 55-minute Delta Airlines flight to Montréal from equally nightmarish JFK airport. After two hours of delay due, in all fairness, partly to the weather, we finally took off.

The customs officer at the airport, a former badminton player herself, was pleasantly surprised when I told her the purpose of my trip. ‘Badminton photographer? Really?’, she said. Yup. To help me forget that I was more than 15.000 kilometres away from Istora Senayan, my good friend Eric invited me to a nearby show for Québec’s national holiday. Despite the good music and 200,000-strong crowd, my mind was still vibrating from the In-do-ne-sia, In-do-ne-sia chants heard 48 hours earlier. I will miss you, Jakarta…