RI wins women's badminton gold
RI wins women's badminton gold
SHAH ALAM, Malaysia (AP): Longtime champion Indonesia reasserted its dominance of women's team badminton at the Southeast Asian Games Tuesday, beating Thailand 3-1 for the gold medal.
Although badminton standards in the world's fourth most populous nation have slipped a little since its heyday of the early 1990s, Indonesia has not lost the title since 1977. Malaysia and Vietnam took bronze.
Shaking off her poor form in Monday's semifinals, Indonesia's Lydia Djaelawijaya, the women's singles top seed, beat Thailand's Sujitra in the opening singles 11-7, 11-2.
The doubles pair of Deyana Lomban and Vita Marissa put the Indonesians 2-0 up with a 15-10, 15-6 victory over Saralee Thoungthongkam and Satinee of Thailand.
A gutsy singles performance from Salakjit Ponsana, 17, put the Thais back in contention.
After losing the first set 11-6 and winning the second 11-2 against Yuli Marfuah, Thailand's second-ranked singles player fought back from 0-6 to clinch the decider 11-8, briefly silencing the spirited Indonesian supporters.
But a new doubles pairing of Emma Ermawati and Eny Erlangga, 20, making her debut for the Indonesian women's team, powered past Duangchong and Kunchala of Thailand 15-7, 15-8 to clinch the gold.
"I think it's a special day for the Indonesian team," said Christian Hadinata, the team manager. "It's great for morale too as we look forward to the individual matches."
Christian was especially happy with Eny's performance as she prepares for the singles. But he tipped Lydia, the world No. 10, to become champion if she keeps playing as well as she did Tuesday.
Sompol Kookasemkit, the Thai team manager, was stoic about the defeat.
"Our team were the underdogs and we tried our best. The first singles was disappointing because she (Sujitra) was out of form," the former top badminton player said.
But the determined performance of young prospect Salakjit was a bonus. She will also contest the singles, starting Wednesday.
"In the future we hope she can do well. Right now she's still quite young, still growing," he said.