INDONESIA OPEN 2015 R32 – Angga and Ricky humbled at home

After Tontowi Ahmad / Liliyana Natsir got their revenge on Australian Open winners Lee/Chau Tuesday, it was an Indonesian pair on the losing end of a grudge match Wednesday as Singapore Open winners Pratama/Suwardi fell to Fu/Zhang.

Mathilde Liliana Perada and Naomi Indartiningrum, Badzine correspondents live in Jakarta.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Much to the chagrin of Indonesian fans, revenge belonged to China’s world #7 Fu Haifeng / Zhang Nan (photo).  The mighty Chinese pair had been defeated in the Singapore Open final this year by the new Indonesian pairing of Angga Pratama and Ricky Karanda Suwardi but the second meeting was unlucky for host representative, as they gave up to Fu/Zhang in straight games.

The match was tight in the first with neither pair achieving a lead of more than two points.  Pratama and Suwardi earned the game point first but the Chinese pair reversed the situation and won in extra points.

“We lost the first game because we were unwary of our opponents,” said Pratama at the post-match interview.

The first game defeat had big impact to this Singapore Open 2015 winners’ performance.  They started to lose focus and made a lot of unforced errors.

“The way they were playing today was different from at the Singapore Open,” added Suwardi.  He said that it was the second meeting so the China players seemed to have learnt more about the way he and Angga play.

“We already brought our best and we didn’t want to lose.  We will prepare ourselves to play for the SEA Games in the next tournament and hope we can bring our best performance,” Pratama stated to close the interview.

Marin gives in to unseeded challenger; Christie topples a seed

Carolina Marin (photo), last week’s Australia Open champion, was sent home early by Japan’s Yui Hashimoto, who went one better than last week, when she opened her Australian campaign by only beating a former World Champion.

Marin opened the match by unequivocally winning by 21-10 in the first game.  Although she was also leading in the second game interval, the World Champion was finally forced to concede the match to Hashimoto after struggling with the rubber game.

This most promising of all Spanish shuttlers admitted that she is exhausted after coming back from Australia that this was one of the reasons why she was not playing well:  “I’m very tired, especially my legs, my shoulders,” said the number two seed.

Hashimoto (photo), on the other hand, was understandably so happy and excited after beating Marin in early round: “I was against an opponent who has a powerful smash, so at first I felt a bit tired and it was hard to return her smash.  But in the end, I was able to figure her pattern of play and return her powerful smash.

“In the second game, I tried to perform with all of my strength.  For me, if I just give up, it’s so meaningless so every time I got a chance, I gave my best strength to win,” said Hashimoto, who is going to face her Japanese team-mate, Minatsu Mitani in next round.

Meanwhile, Jonatan Christie (photo) continued his positive trend, beating #7seed Chou Tien Chen from Chinese Taipei.  After achieving a big result in the qualification round versus Boonsak Ponsana, Christie stopped his first round opponent by playing an attacking style.  He just took 43 minutes before he made his first ever step into the second round of a Superseries Premier tournament.

“My opponent was favoured to win but he looked nervous,” said the Christie about French Open winner Chen.

All four of Indonesia’s men’s singles shuttlers achieved upsets in the first round, in fact.  If #53 Christie beating the #7 player seems impressive, as does anyone beating Lin Dan, as Tommy Sugiarto did on Wednesday (see more on that match here), then #167 Anthony Ginting beating #30 Brice Leverdez is nothing to sneeze at either.  However, all but Tommy must face current or former top five players in their second round matches.

Click here for complete Wednesday results