INDONESIA OPEN 2015 R32 – “Super Dan” goes home early

History was created in the first round of the BCA Indonesia Open Superseries Premier 2015.  Playing with full support from local supporters, Tommy Sugiarto, already in the books as a shuttler who can defeat the one and only Lin Dan, served the Chinese legend a second consecutive first-round exit for the first time since his teen years.

By Naomi Indartiningrum, Badzine correspondent live in Jakarta.  Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)

Tommy Sugiarto (pictured) performed with full confidence against Lin Dan by giving him hard resistance.  Although, Lin Dan succeeded in besting Tommy in the first game, 21-19, it was the latter who was able to count on the Indonesian supporters.

The son of former World Champion Icuk Sugiarto tried his best to perform carefully.  He attacked Lin Dan (pictured below) by using drives and concentrating on placement, complicating things for the number two seed.  With Lin’s stamina no longer looking like what it once was, Tommy succeeded in taking advantage and winning the second game 21-8.

In the third game, the now-independent Sugiarto led by 11-2 at the interval.  In the middle of the game, Tommy seemed to lose his focus and was nearly caught when Lin crept up to 12-16.

“I tried to  fight and focus.  I try to perform calmly and not hurry to get the point,” said Tommy after the match.  “I tried to follow his rhythm so I could control my rhythm and control the game overall.  In the third game, I lost my focus when he started perform better but I tried to keep confident and have faith that I could beat him.”

Tommy confessed that he never expected to defeat the five-time World Champion in the early round: “After looking at the draw, I was so surprised that I would be against Lin Dan in the first round.  I felt like everything had turned against me but now I have managed to defeat him.  That makes me confident that nobody should underestimate me after this,” said Tommy.

Sugiarto will next face the winner between Scott Evans and Marc Zwiebler in the second round.  With this loss, Lin Dan is again unable to make up any ground in the world rankings on his Chinese team-mate, Chen Long, who had already made it through to the second round after beating Hong Kong’s Wei Nan.

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