Tennis Tournament on Death Row

STUDENTS of the surreal or the preposterous might struggle to come up with a better idea: a fun day of tennis on death row.

For Australian inmates Scott Rush and Andrew Chan, yesterday's tournament in Bali's Kerobokan prison was not only real, but a welcome diversion.

"Thank God for the competition today," Rush said. "It's good for us here. To keep us active, and I like to be active, so do all the prisoners here."

Chan and Rush formed a doubles team to take on the finest from Indonesia's Immigration Department as the prison opened its doors to the media for the tournament.

Prisoners and public servants traded groundstrokes as an organ played and singers serenaded about 100 spectators, among them Australia's consul in Bali, Bruce Cowled.

The event was the idea of Yon Suharyono, the prison governor, who revealed that the many of the Bali nine, the young Australians convicted of trafficking heroin, were keen tennis players. "They love it," he said. "They play tennis almost from morning till noon, all day until they have to go back in (their cells)," he said.

All prisoners competing in the two-day "Department of Law and Human Rights Tennis Open" wore matching red shirts, with Si Yi Chen, Myuran Sukumaran and Matthew Norman of the Bali nine also hitting the court.

For Rush, Chan and Sukumaran, all residents of "The Tower", the section for inmates awaiting death by firing squad, the tennis is a good distraction as they wait to make appeals against their sentences.

Asked about the possibility of execution, Rush was uncomfortable, if philosophical: "I don't know, I don't think it's a good thing. But, it's the law in this country."

During the early rounds yesterday, fellow Australian inmate Schapelle Corby wasn't to be seen, even as her brother Michael Corby came to visit.

After Corby's public breakdown, visit to a hospital and side trip to a beauty parlour earlier this year, Mr Suharyono said she was feeling much better. "She's socialising now, she's mingling with the others."

Source: theage.com.au, December 12, 2008

Picture: Australian death-row inmate Scott Rush hits a forehand during yesterday's tennis tournament at Bali's Kerobokan prison.