SEA GAMES: EPIC DOUBLES ENCOUNTERS

The 1995 Thai SEA Games Men's Team, Chiang Mai, Thailand

The South East Asian (SEA) Games are held every two years and are fiercely contested by countries within the region.  Countries such as Thailand, The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Singapore and Myanmar compete in a wide range of events, including tennis.  It’s a South East Asian version of the Olympics and without the bigger countries participating it gives the smaller, emerging countries a chance to shine and to gauge whether they are improving. 

I first captained the Thai team in 1989 when the SEA Games were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Of the 7 gold medals available in the tennis competition we picked up 3, more than any other country that year. The biggest prize was the Men’s Team gold medal, beating the Indonesian Men’s team in the semi-final and The Philippines in the final. The match against Indonesia went down to the final doubles after the two singles rubbers had been split one all.  Indonesia had qualified and played in the Davis Cup World Group that year and gave a really good account of themselves against Germany which included Becker and Stich, both eventual Wimbledon Champions.

The doubles against Indonesia went down to the deciding third set and both teams were on serve at 3-4 in favor of the Thai’s. I was becoming concerned that at the end of every point the Indonesian team were finishing closer to the net.  This meant that the Indonesians were beginning to dominate the net exchanges and would therefore be more likely to break serve in the deciding set before we would. At the changeover I decided to ask Wittaya Samret, our doubles specialist, to attack the return of serve down the line as forcefully as possible.  I had a lot of faith in Wittaya and sometimes players at this level only need to be told what to do and they will find a way to do it.   

Moments before his first attempt at returning serve Wittaya looked over at me for reassurance.  I gave him a confident nod and tried to look like I only expected a positive outcome.  The first serve landed in deep and bounced high. Wittaya ran around his backhand and hit the biggest forehand of his life, the ball passing the player at net so fast he never had a chance. Wittaya looked at me exhilarated by what he had done; I nodded once again with my poker face on.  The Indonesian at net gave us both a sarcastic look as if to say “that was just luck, you could never do that again”. We played a good point on the other side and the score was 15-30, Wittaya to return again.  This time the server went to Wittaya’s forehand sensing that Wittaya would be expecting another serve to his backhand and try to run around it again.  Wittaya was too experienced for that, again hitting the return as hard as he could at the Indonesian net man.  Again another sizzling winner that almost cost the Indonesian his life!  We broke serve that game and those two crucial returns had put us through to the final where we eventually beat The Philippines for the Team Gold.

I captained Thailand again in the SEA Games held in Chiang Mai in 1995 where we picked up 4 of the possible 7 gold medals, and helped Thailand capture another 4 gold’s in the Brunei SEA Games in 1997.  Brunei saw the emergence of Paradorn Srichaphan and Danai Udomchoke into senior national teams but I will remember Brunei for another doubles match against our old foes Indonesia.  Once again it was one rubber all and the doubles would decide who would win the Team gold.

It would have been like any other Thailand versus Indonesia SEA Games encounter but for one thing, the centre court was full of Thai and Indonesian laborers who were living in Brunei supply cheap labour for the building of roads and to work on construction sites.  They had been given a few days off work to watch the SEA Games and few would have witnessed a real tennis match in their lives.  Few would have bothered to watch this one either if it wasn’t for the Srichaphan brothers Thanakorn, Narathorn and Paradorn who come from the same area of Thailand as them, the North East. 

The noise between points and sometimes during points was deafening.  The Thai part of the crowd were getting the better of the Indonesian section of the crowd and several times the Indonesian players stopped play to protest to the umpire but it was impossible to do anything. Narathorn began conversing with the crowd in the unique dialect from the north eastern part of Thailand, fanning the emotions even more.

Thailand won the encounter easily that day and a lot of Thai workers went home happy, proud to be Thai, and with bragging rights on the construction site the next day!