Basuki’s Victory Serves Notice : Women’s tennis: Rising 20-year-old from Indonesia overpowers Porwick, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4, in the first round at Manhattan Country Club.

Yayuk Basuki, the finest tennis player in all Indonesia, played her first match in the United States on Monday and left just one question unanswered.

Who is Yayuk Basuki?

“I know, ‘Who is this girl,’ ” Basuki said. “I just want to show what I can do. I am not big shot.”

A 20-year-old from Jakarta, Basuki hits bazookas for forehands and serves, and has zoomed in the rankings from No. 273 to No. 39 this year. Not bad for a tennis player from a country where badminton is the racket of choice.

In a first-round match spaced between rain delays at Manhattan Country Club in the Virginia Slims of Los Angeles, Basuki slugged her way past Claudia Porwick, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4, along the way drilling 10 serves at more than 100 m.p.h.

When you add six aces, it is evident that Basuki made a good accounting of herself in her U.S. debut, which seemed entirely appropriate for a recent graduate of the Academy of Bank Management in Tokyo.

Basuki certainly likes to deposit forehands all over the court and described them this way: “It is like a killing shot.”

Basuki turned pro in November, won the first tournament she played this year, a satellite event on the Kraft Tour in Jakarta, came through qualifying to the second round of the Suntory Open in Japan, then won a regular tour event in Pattaya, Thailand, in late April.

By the time she entered the French Open, she was up to No. 83 in the rankings and impressed her new coach, Jiri Waters, who never saw Basuki before he arrived in Jakarta from his tennis club in Czechoslovakia.

Said Waters: “It is not important for me that she is known. What is important for me is the results on the court.”

Only 5 feet 4 1/2, Basuki plays an attacking game built around a powerful forehand and a slicing backhand that she consistently sends deep to the baseline. Basuki’s learning experience in her first year as a pro includes losses to top-10 players Steffi Graf, Martina Navratilova, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario and Mary Joe Fernandez.

“You meet them the first time, they are top five and you are a little bit chicken, you know?” said Basuki, whose knowledge of English comes from traveling, not from high school in Jakarta, she said.

Her knowledge of tennis began when she was 8 in her hometown of Yogyakarta, where her father, Budi Basuki, is a retired police officer. The young Indonesian girl grew up admiring none other than Jimmy Connors.

Jimmy Connors?

“He’s cool, he’s quiet and he’s a fighter,” Basuki said.

And the next time Basuki has to face Graf or Navratilova or some other top-10 player, she thinks she will feel like fighting more than she did the first time.

“When I get to the court (before), I feel small,” she said. “Then I said, ‘Hey, why not try?’ It is nervous, you know. So I try to show them that I got a great game, that I try my best on the court.

“I feel I bring my country up. A lot of people don’t know where Indonesia is. They don’t know there are any players there.”

Tennis Notes

In the featured match Monday night, Mary Pierce defeated Patricia Tarabini of Argentina, 6-2, 4-6, 6-0. . . . Social scene: Monica Seles took a limousine to Dodger Stadium and watched the Dodgers play the Cincinnati Reds Monday night. Meanwhile, Gabriela Sabatini traveled by limo to appear on the Arsenio Hall Show. . . . Seles plays her first match at 7 tonight. . . . Karine Quentrec and Julie Halard pulled out and were replaced in the singles draw by Heather Ludloff and Jo-Anne Faull.