From that point onwards, our game became unsteady."Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesias mixed doubles duo Tontowi Ahmad (Owi)/Liliyana Natsir (Butet) failed to advance to the BCA Indonesia Super Series Premier Badminton Open finals, having lost to Chinese pair Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei here on Saturday.
Owi/Butet were beaten 21-16, 15-21, 18-21 by Zhang/Zhao in a match that lasted an hour and 11 minutes.
"We opened the first set well and won it, and I was confident we would win. But they changed their tactics in the second set, which we failed to anticipate," Butet said after the match.
In the third set, she and Owi were caught off guard when they found their scores constantly tied, i.e. at 11-11, 12-12 and 14-14, due to which they were unable to outdo their opponents in point collection until the score reached 14-17.
"From that point onwards, our game became unsteady. When we tried to catch up, we came under pressure and they won," she remarked.
With this defeat, the duos dream to win the Indonesia Open for the first time was crushed, and one of the chances the country had to secure a victory was lost.
Moreover, Zhang/Zhao stated that the match that day went quite well.
"We did lose the first set, but that is normal in a match. However, we turned the situation around in the second and third sets," Zhang pointed out.
In the finals on Sunday, Zhang and Zhao will face the winner of the match between defending champions Joachim Fischer Nielsen/Christina Pedersen from Denmark and Xu Chen/Ma Jin.
The tournament is a world-class event, offering a total prize money of Rp10 billion.
(Repoting by Benardy Ferdiansyah/Uu.H-YH/INE/KR-BSR)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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