0 Tontowi, Liliyana ease past first hurdles at All England

Indonesian mixed doubles pair Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir overcame the first hurdles in their bid to defend their All England title on Wednesday. Tontowi and Liliyana won over Germany’s Michael Fuchs and Birgit Michels 21-10, 21-15. Another pair Markis Kido/Pia Zebadiah Bernadeth also booked a win but Riky Widianto/Puspita Richi Dili failed to advance. 

Markis/Pia defeated fourth seeds Joachim Fisher Nielsen/Christinna Pedersen 12-21, 21-19, 23-21 in a match that lasted over an hour while Riky/ Puspita went down to Shin Baek-choel/Jang Ye-na of South Korea 21-15, 21-14. In the men’s singles, Tommy Sugiarto was off to winning start by defeating Gao Huan of China 21-14, 21-13 but Taufik Hidayat, gold medalist at 2004 Athens Olympics, had to pack for home early. Taufik lost to Sho Sasaki of Japan 21-16, 21-11 at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England. 

Indonesia’s other players had yet to complete their matches on Wednesday, including Vita Marissa/Praveen Jordan. Vita/ Praveen reached the main round after chalking up two wins during qualifying matches. They won over Chris Langridge/ Heather Oliver 24-22, 21-17 and 21-12 16-21 21-17 over Sam and Chloe Magee. Praveen said he was awestruck by his first All England event and admitted to being lost for words playing in the court. “It feels different from other tournaments. 

I can’t believe I can play in here,” he said as quoted by PBSI official website on Wednesday. Vita/Praveen, who got into semifinal of the Malaysia Open Superseries tournament last month and advanced to the first round of the Korea Open Superseries earlier this year, were scheduled to play Chen Hung Linng/Pai Hsiao Ma of Chinese Taipei. Belaetrix Manuputi also had to go through qualifying stage before playing in the main round. 

She defeated Austrian Simone Prutsch 21-19, 21-14 and German Karin Schnaase 21-11, 21-13. She was paired against Japanese Minatsu Mitani later on Wednesday. Belaetrix and Mitani played for Jaya Raya Jakarta club during the Superliga Badminton Indonesia earlier this year. “More or less I know her play since we trained together during the superliga,” she said.

source : the jakarta post