National players tumble out at Milo junior badminton meet
Musthofid, The Jakarta Post, Surabaya
National team officials saw their pretournament boasts scuppered as their proteges were sent packing at the US$10,000 Milo Junior Indonesia Open badminton championships here on Thursday.
Sigit Pamungkas and Asep Suharno, national team manager and coach, had not expected their players, who had undergone a training stint of at least four months ahead of the event, to crash out when the competition had yet to reach the semifinal stage.
The national team fielded seven girls' singles players, all seeded, but only Firdasari and Siti Mahiroh remain in contention for the title after Thursday's quarterfinals.
Firdasari and Siti were each forced to a third set before overcoming Francisca Ratnasari of Jaya Raya 11-2, 3-11, 11-7 and Haleyna Aristianti of Mutiara Bandung 11-0, 4-11, 11-4 in their matches played at the Sudirman Sports Hall.
To make things grimmer for the national squad, the two will have to beat each other in the semifinals on Friday.
The outcome was a mockery of the elite players' appraisal that they, according to Sigit in his previous comment, were generally a class apart from the rest of the field.
To add to their woes, top seed Dewi Tira Arisandi was among the major victims. She was crushed 11-0, 11-1 by defending champion Silvi Antarini, who is only the tournament's joint ninth seed out of 16 this time around.
Asep blamed the elite players' exit on their inability to cope with the psychological stress and nerves.
"Being players from the national training center, they have endured the burden of having to win. They felt scared of losing, scared of having their shuttlecock flop into the net or going wide," Asep told The Jakarta Post.
"They struggled hard to shrug the pressure off, apparently to no avail. It all came down to nontechnical matters, as I saw from their matches they conceded points mostly due to their unforced errors, not because of an offensive from their opponents."
On court, Dewi had the pressure not only of having high status but also of having to unsettle her jinx against Jaya Raya member Silvi, who had beaten her in 16 of their previous 17 meetings.
"I was nervous, my power deserted me," Dewi said after the match, looking dejected.
Fellow trainee Maria Elfira went down to Holli of Suryanaga Surabaya 11-6, 11-3, while the other three -- Richasari, Fitria Firdaus and Maria Kristin -- had already crashed out in the third round .
Holli will face Silvi in the other semifinal match on Friday.
The only national contender, Holvy De Pauw, defeated left- hander Leonard of Jarum Kudus 15-7, 15-7, while the two pairs all cruised to the top-four stage, Joko Riyadi/Hendra and Markis Kido/Rian Sukmawan.
In the girls' doubles, the national team had five pairs but only Devi Sukma/Rani Mundiasti and Liliyana/Nathalia survived to the semifinals. In the mixed doubles, Hendra S./Devi Sukma and Markis Kido/Lilyana opened up the possibility of their playing in the final after they managed to reach the semifinals.