TUC 2010 Day 2 – Indonesia survive Indian Army’s bullets

By EeLyn Ooi, live from Putra Stadium, Kuala Lumpur. Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

The afternoon in Kuala Lumpur’s Putra Stadium was not at all affected by the absence of a zealous crowd. Instead, it seemed more like an event where world-class badminton meets mini musicals.

The Indonesians, who have earned a reputation for their horn-blowing, brought in new instruments hitting them to the stadium’s pageantry music and to the rhythm of the drum-hitting from the German team. While, the Danes and Australians also showed their creativity by wearing nicely decorated hats and painting their faces too.

The devotion of the cheering team became the main source of motivation for the players on court, who sweat it out in the name of national pride.

Indonesia’s golden boy Taufik Hidayat (pictured top left) had a soul-stirring game against Parupalli Kashyap (pictured below) of India. The Indonesian was seen struggling to rise against the aggressive Indian. Even members of the media, who were watching from afar, sprang from their seats as Taufik grabbed the second game to batter the Indian’s hopes of a straight-game win. Taufik eventually won in scores of 14-21, 21-19, 21-18.

“I was having problems with the wind and it was better when we switched courts in the second set. In fact, I had the same problem yesterday but my opponent today was a much stronger and better one so the problems became worse,” said Taufik, who was grinning through the post-match press conference.

“However”, continued Taufik, “if I am having such a trouble, for sure the other players are facing it too, same goes to my opponent. So I think the direction of the wind is not a good excuse for not playing well enough. It’s my first time playing Parupalli and he’s a good player indeed. I had to concentrate in maintaining my mentalities as I was very far behind his points in the games.”

On the other hand, Kashyap Parupalli, who will be turning 24 this September, remarked: “This game has definitely boosted my confidence a lot because Taufik is an excellent player who’s always playing the semi-finals and finals of major tournaments.”

After Taufik’s narrow victory, Indonesia’s reigning Olympic champions, Markis Kido / Hendra Setiawan, beat India’s Sanave Thomas / Akshay Dewalkar without much effort.

However, lady luck decided to tease the Indonesians as their second singles representative, Sony Dwi Kuncoro, showed signs of injury when he was 9-15 down in the second game and eventually retired in lieu of playing out the third game to bequeath Indian veteran Arvind Bhatt a 19-21, 21-9, 21-0 win.

At the press conference, Indonesian team manager, Yakob Rusdianto said: “Sony’s old injury on his back was bothering him so he decided to stop. It was his own decision.”

Rusdianto added: “He was perfectly fine yesterday and before the match  That’s why we decided to let him play today to get used to the games here. We have no matches tomorrow so we’ll analyze Sony’s condition to see if he’s still fit to play on.”

When asked on his thoughts and plans now that Taufik has to struggle through games and Sony is down with a back injury, Rusdianto said calmly: “It’s normal for players to have good times and bad times. Besides, India is a good team.”

Still sitting on a 2-1 lead, Indonesia then fired two accurate bullets and ended the tie with a 4-1 win.

While everyone was still clueless whether Sony would be able to stand up for his country in the knock-out rounds, Indonesia’s Simon Santoso, who had Anup Sridhar in two games 21-8, 21-17, said: “We’ll just prepare and play when it’s our time.”

In the other groups, the Korean men, who had a day off on the opening day, got off to beautiful start despite not fielding their strongest team this afternoon.

With Park Sung Hwan and Jung Jae Sung watching from the bench, Shon Wan Ho (pictured) showed some good moves as the first singles representative, while both doubles pairs Yoo/Cho and Shin/Kim won easily too. After brushing aside Peru 5-0, Korea will face-off against the mighty Chinese, to whom they finished runners-up two years ago.

Badzine is reporting ‘live’ at the 2010 Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Kuala Lumpur! Check back for our daily news updates and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.