Women's singles highlights were the talk of the day as Japanese teenager Sayaka Sato eliminated the top seed while two local Marias had different fortunes in first round action at the 2009 Djarum Indonesia Open Super Series.
By Ira Ratnati and Aaron Wong, Badzine Correspondents. Photos: Badmintonphoto (live)
The badminton action heated up quickly when the Beijing Olympic Silver medallist, Xie Xingfang (CHN) came up against Bronze medallist and last year's runner-up of this tournament, Maria Kristin Yulianti (INA). Xie shut out Yulianti in the entire first set by earning a 4-point buffer at the interval which she extended to 18-11 and there was no turning back. The Indonesian raced off in the second set but Xie leveled it at 3-3. They found themselves at 17-17 and then Yulianti took a 2-point lead only to be reeled in again at deuce 20-20 and 21-21 before Xie took the 2 point lead that really mattered and finished off the match.
The huge and unexpected upset of the first day of the main draw was the qualifier from Japan, Sayaka Sato (pictured below), ranked 61st in the world claiming the biggest scalp of her young career in defeating last week's Singapore Open champion and Athens Olympics bronze medallist , Zhou Mi of Hong Kong in 43 minutes.
It was hardly alarming that Zhou lost the first set and won the second as she is known as a slow starter but the Japanese held her own nerve in the neck-and-neck decider to seal an ecstatic victory at 21-19.
io2009d2-SayakaIndonesian youngster Maria Febe Kusumastuti (pictured above) will be waving the red and white flag into the next round after she exacted revenge over fifth seed and former world #2 Pi Hongyan (FRA) for last year's first round defeat. This time Kusumastuti clinched the first game 24-22 and let go of the second 6-21 after evaluating that her 10-point deficit was not worth rescuing and that it would be best to concentrate on the third.
"In the third game, it seemed Pi was so eager to end it quickly but she couldn't ... I followed her flow and let her attack me and tried my best to return it. She made mistakes which became my advantage. I felt if I played with the same tempo as her I bet I'd run out of energy," explained the happy and relieved Kusumastuti as she sculled down a bottle of ionic drink after the expected exhausting encounter against the Frenchwoman.
Most of the other women's singles matches went as expected although Malaysia's Wong Mew Choo struggled with a Korean upstart for the second consecutive week and again failed to make it past the first round. This time, it was the even lower-ranked Kim Moon Hi who stood in Wong's way and the tall twenty-year-old wrapped up the match in straight games.
Andre Kurniawan Tedjono, the next generation of Indonesian men's singles, faced Lin "Super Dan". The Super Dan, who skipped the Singapore Open, won in straight sets 21-13, 22-20. Post-match, Tedjono remarked how it was a great pleasure to play a shuttler of Lin 's calibre and predicted that it would be very tough for anybody to overcome him.
Compatriot and eighth seed Simon Santoso fared better with the slimmest of wins over Denmark's Jan O Jorgensen 16-21, 21-8, 21-19, and will need his A-game again against Park Sung Hwan (KOR) in the next round.
io2009d2-Flandy-AnastasiaIn mixed doubles, the new Russian-Indonesian combination of Anastasia Russkikh and Flandy Limpele (pictured) - the latter himself a bronze medallist in men's doubles at the Sydney Olympics - are out and the even newer partnership of Vita Marissa / Hendra Aprida Gunawan proceed to round 2 for a delicious meeting with Singapore Open winners Ma Jin / Zheng Bo of China. Korea made strong advances with four mixed doubles pairs through and these sent Indonesian, Russian, Polish and English opponents to the bench early.
All in all, it was a day of win-one-lose-one, here and there, for Indonesia but the major hopes of the nation in every badminton discipline, plus their favourite son Taufik Hidayat, are still in contention.
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