Liliyana and Tontowi are aces in Olympics
An All England Open trophy on Sunday night has finally ended Indonesia’s
nine-year title drought in badminton’s oldest tournament and 33-year
title drought in the mixed doubles event.
But will the Tontowi
Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir’s victory boost the team spirit in the London
Olympics? National doubles coach for Christian Hadinata believes in the
hype surrounding the duo brings confidence, and they will be a bastion
at the London Olympics.
“They’ve just carved history. And with
such an achievement, it is not to be questioned that they will be our
ace in the Olympics,” national coach in doubles Christian told The
Jakarta Post on Monday.
Tontowi and Liliyana, who have only
played together for a year, defeated Danish pair Thomas Laybourn and
Kamilla Rytter Juhl 21-17, 21-19 to take the trophy at the National
Indoor Arena in Birmingham. The victory is the first All England mixed
doubles title for Indonesia since Christian Hadinata and Imelda Wigoena
beat English pair Mike Tredgett and Nora Perry in the 1979 final.
Christian
said that with their current world ranking, he had high hopes that the
two would meet the nation’s expectations. Liliyana and Tontowi are now
world No. 4 — the highest in the list among all Indonesian shuttlers.
“Liliyana
and Tontowi have an equal chance to grab the gold [in London] because
there is no superior pair among the world’s mixed doubles, unlike in
women’s doubles, where China is an unbreakable powerhouse,” he added.
“However,
the Olympics have a unique atmosphere because the pressure is always so
heavy there. Those who usually win in the super series, open
tournaments or even world championships do not necessarily win Olympic
gold,” said Christian.
The other way around has also happened to
other players. Indonesia’s most celebrated players Taufik Hidayat and
doubles pair Hendra Setiawan-Markis Kido have won all the major titles,
except the All-England.
Taufik won the 2004 Olympic gold medal,
won the 2005 world title, won numerous super series and open
tournaments, won Asiad gold and helped the Indonesian Thomas Cup team
bring home trophies in 2000 and 2002, but somehow, no matter how hard he
tries, the All-England continues to elude him.
Such is the same
for Markis and Hendra, who grabbed Olympic gold in 2008 in Beijing after
becoming world champs in 2007, but have never been successful in the
All England.
“Markis and I have won the Olympics, World
Championships and Asian Games gold, but we never could do it in the All
England. We either struggle to beat our opponents or mess it up by
playing badly,” Hendra told Malaysian newspaper The Star in the first
day of the All England Open last Wednesday.
Hendra and Kido were stopped by Danish Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen in the second round match the next day.
Indonesian
Badminton Federation general secretary Yacob Rusdianto said five months
is enough to polish the team performance and believes that the country
will be able to retain the badminton gold tradition at the London Games.
The London Games will be held form July 27 to Aug. 12.
“We
never want to put pressure on the players so we don’t put any targets on
individual players. We just want them to retain the gold medal in
badminton, which we’ve never missed since badminton was included in the
1992 Barcelona Olympics,” said Yacob.
The Jakarta Post
