Its manager Hadi Nazri said when seeing his players conducting an exercise here on Saturday he felt optimistic the team could beat Russia in the opening round.
However he declined to promise that Simon Santoso and his fellows could win a landslide over Russia. "The Russian players are also good and we dare not targeting a landslide victory because they have strong female players," he said.
"We would take points from the men`s group because I saw they have good players in the women`s team," he said.
Hadi said group matches are different from individual matches. "I think we can take points from the men`s events including mix doubles," he said.
He said the match against Russia on Sunday would begin with mixed doubles followed by men`s single, men`s doubles, women`s singles and women`s doubles.
Indonesia in the mixed doubles plans to field Frans Kurniawan Teng/Pia Zebadiah, who would meet Durkin Vitalij/Nina Vasilova and Bona Septano/Muhammad Ahsan to meet Durkin Vitalij/Nikolav Alexander.
In the women`s singles event it will field Ardiyanto Firdasari who would meet with Bibik Tadjana while in the women`s doubles Meliana Jauhari/Gresya Polii to meet Serena Valeria/Nina Vasilova.
Unlike before where men`s single event is always played first this time it will be started with mixed doubles because there is a player that has to play twice and women`s doubles event as the closing game.
Russian Nina Vasilova also has to play in the mixed doubles besides playing in a women`s single event.
The director of national training center, Christian Hadinata, meanwhile said although theoretically Indonesia would win the team still needs to be careful.
"I am not too familiar with Russian players but I remember one good player namely Anastasia Rassukh who used to play in pair with Hendra Aprida Gunawan.
"We must remain careful in the first match. We theoretically will win but we must be careful," the former top men`s double player said.(*)
(H-YH/HAJM/H-YH)
Editor: Ruslan Burhani
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
