All the Republic’s shuttlers are out of the OUE Singapore Open, following exits in the men’s and mixed doubles at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last night.
The men’s doubles partnership of Danny Bawa Chrisnanta and Hendra Wijaya, who were paired together earlier this year, lost to Japanese world No. 19 tandem Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda 21-10, 21-10 in front of a crowd of about 2,000 last night.
The mismatch in standards – the Singaporeans are ranked 516th in the world – was apparent from the get-go, with the Japanese aggressive in attack and fluid in movement around the court.
Chrisnanta, 27, said: “They played very well today; no matter what plays we made, they were more steady.”
Wijaya, 30, added: “We just started partnering not too long ago and we needed more communication on court and to be stable in our play. Today, the feeling was not there.”
Despite the exit, Chrisnanta said the partnership was promising and they would keep on working on their chemistry.
He said: “With our age, we are confident of playing in the SEA Games (next year), and even the Commonwealth Games in 2018, although the 2020 Olympics is too far away. We can still improve, and we will just do so with each competition.”
Meanwhile, mixed doubles world No. 47 Terry Hee and Tan Wei Han lost to the 82nd-ranked Chinese duo Liu Yuchen and Tang Jinhua 21-16, 22-20. The Chinese also won their only previous meeting 21-15, 12-21, 21-9 at the Malaysian Open last week.
Hee (top), 20, said: “I think it was a decent performance but I’m sure we could have done much better.
“When we were leading, we played more in the front court and it was quite successful.
“But we became impatient as we wanted to get more points and that caused us to play their game instead.”
Tan (bottom), 22, added: “Even though the scores were not very far apart, I think we could have given them a harder fight.”
This article was first published on April 15, 2016.
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