China Knocks Feisty Indonesia Out of Sudirman Cup Semis
Jakarta. Indonesia’s shuttlers put up a valiant effort but fell in the Sudirman Cup semifinals on Saturday to the Chinese juggernaut, which marched into an 11th straight final, eyeing a sixth consecutive title in the badminton team championship.
Playing before a fiercely partisan crowd at the Dongfeng Nissan Sports Center in Dongguan, China, Indonesia lost the best-of-five tie 3-1, but ran their opponents closer than the final score suggested, and in the process notched up the only individual defeat suffered by China at this year’s tournament.
Former world champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan claimed that win when they beat Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng 21-16, 21-17, in the men’s doubles to open the tie.
Cai and Fu were the Olympic gold medalists at the 2012 Games in London, as well as four-time world champions, but put up little resistance against Ahsan and Hendra, the latter a gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with then-partner Markis Kido.
“[Cai and Fu] haven’t been paired together in a long time, but even so, they’re still badminton legends,” Ahsan said after the match, as quoted by badmintonindonesia.org, the website of the Indonesian Badminton Association, or PBSI.
“They won the Olympics, they won multiple world championships, and I think they’re still very good and very solid. But today, we were better prepared.”
In the next match, though, Indonesia’s Bellaetrix Manuputty fell awkwardly on her left knee while leading 5-3 in her first game against Li Xuerui, the world number one, and was forced to retire. That evened the tie at 1-1.
In the men’s singles match, world number one Chen Long easily dispatched of Jonatan Christie, ranked 63rd and playing in only his first Sudirman Cup, to give China a 2-1 lead.
Faced with elimination from the tournament, Indonesia put up a strong fight in the fourth match, the women’s doubles. Asian Games champions Greysia Polii and Nitya Krishinda Maheswari came out storming against Yu Yang and Tang Yuanting, winning the first game 21-17. But the Chinese pair struck back to take the next two games 21-17, 21-15, to seal the tie 3-1 and dump Indonesia out of the tournament.
Greysia said she and Nitya had tried their best, but found themselves flummoxed by their opponents, who are not each other’s usual doubles partners.
“We’ve never come up against [Yu and Tang] before,” she told badmintonindonesia.org.
“We’ve met all their other women’s doubles pairs before, but never this combination of Tang and Yu. Maybe that was part of their strategy. They have a lot of doubles players who are all very good. They just had too much ammunition on the day.”
Greysia added that even though Indonesia’s place in the tournament hinged on her and Nitya, they never felt under pressure.
“We played from the very start without any pressure. We were confident that, no matter the score going into this match, we’d do our best to contribute a point. So we enjoyed the match and we didn’t feel the pressure,” she said.
The loss extends Indonesia’s barren spell at the Sudirman Cup, named after a co-founder of the PBSI to 26 years. The country’s only title came at the inaugural tournament in 1989, played in Jakarta.
For China, though, the win puts it into the final for a record-extending 11th time. It won the five previous editions of the biennial tournament, and victory in Sunday’s final will give it a 10th title.
The only other country that has won the tournament in the past is South Korea, a three-time champion which meets Japan in the other semifinal on Saturday.
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