INDONESIA OPEN 2016 R16 – Stars not shining

It was not easy to be a seeded player at the Indonesia Open on Thursday and it was particularly hard for men’s doubles stars, as both Mohammad Ahsan / Hendra Setiawan and Fu Haifeng / Zhang Nan.

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

The Indonesia Open lost its last two men’s doubles runners-up.  First, Mohammad Ahsan / Hendra Setiawan joined the ranks of the hapless second seeds in Jakarta.  They failed to enter the quarter-finals when they were beaten by Mads Conrad-Petersen / Mads Kolding (pictured).

On the previous meeting, in the final of the Thomas Cup less than two weeks ago, the Indonesians were able to win in straight games against the Danes, but today the Madses beat the 2013 champions in three, winning 19-21, 21-13, 21-18.

“Today we made quite lot of mistakes and we were pushed by our opponents and we ended up lifting the shuttlecock. We admit that we couldn’t push them hard during the match,” said Setiawan.

The Indonesians actually had a chance to win the third game as the Danes were also having trouble with their control.  The world #2 made more easy mistakes because they were not patient in the critical point. This loss is a big punch for Ahsan and Setiawan as they had actually played an excellent match against them in the Thomas Cup final.

“In the Thomas Cup last week, we initiated the attacks but today they had already got the attack before we could attack them. They controlled the game today. Their serve quality is also great and we made many mistakes on bad service returns,” explained Ahsan.

“It’s amazing we can play like we did yesterday and beat Ahsan/Hendra. We really believed in ourselves today. Beating them on their home ground is amazing,” Kolding said.

“The serve and return is very important.  Several times when we have played them, our serves have been awful and today our serves were actually quite good.  I think that was our strength to beat them,” he added.

Conrad-Petersen/Kolding will not be alone even though their highest-ranked compatriots Mathias Boe / Carsten Mogensen lost in the second round to Japanese’s Takeshi Kamura / Keigo Sonoda. The other Danish pair, Kim Astrup / Anders Skaarup Rasmussen (pictured) also made it into quarter-finals after defeating the #3 seeds Fu Haifeng / Zhang Nan.  For Kim Astrup, that made two huge upsets on the day after he found success in the mixed doubles as well.

Not one, but two World Champions down

Women’s doubles stars Zhao Yunlei / Tian Qing also failed to make it into quarter-finals. The Chinese duo, who repeated as World Champions on their last visit to Jakarta, also  had an intense battle against an unseeded pair.  Unlike when the men’s doubles World Champions fell, however, this time it meant joy for the local crowd as the victors were Indonesia’s own Tiara Rosalia Nuraidah / Rizki Amelia Pradipta (pictured below).

“We just tried to focus on each point and didn’t expect that we could win,” Pradipta said with joy after the match.

“We were able to win against Tian/Zhao because we are solid and keep supporting each other. If one of us made a mistake, the other just kept supporting until we could beat them,” Rosalia added.

Korean’s Jung Kyung Eun / Shin Seung Chan also couldn’t shine in Istora Senayan as they gave up a close match to Anggia Shitta Awanda / Ni Ketut Mahadewi (pictured bottom), after three 21-19 games. Jung/Shin couldn’t minimize their errors on the front court and the Indonesian pair got quite a lot of points from those mistakes while the Koreans seemed to be feeling the pressure.

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