Jakarta, The Indonesia Post – For the first time in two years, Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto secured their place in the final of the 2022 Swiss Open tournament after beating Malaysian men’s doubles Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik on Saturday Basel time.
Today’s 22-20, 13-21, 21-8 victory also marked Fajar/Rian’s first advantage over the second seed after always losing in four meetings.
“First of all, I’m grateful that I was able to finish the match smoothly and without injury. I must be happy, yes, after four meetings we haven’t won at all. So today’s win can increase our confidence. This is also the first final in a long time,” said Rian through PP PBSI’s official statement in Jakarta, Sunday.
The last time the fourth seed felt the atmosphere of the final was at the 2019 Korea Open which took place in September of that year.
Playing attacking but remaining patient is the key to the men’s doubles victory, ranked ninth in the world.
Rian explained that in their first game we played more of the ball forward and always tried to take the initiative to attack so that we could strengthen our advantage.
However, at point nine of the second game, Rian made a drive error involving the net. This mistake unexpectedly made Aaron/Soh turn confident and initiate many attacks that made Fajar/Rian lose focus instead.
“In the third game we tried to apply the same pattern as the first game, control the ball up front and continue to take attacks. The coach also always instructs and reminds us to be brave in the ball up front and ready to defend,” said Rian.
But Fajar/Rian admitted that they didn’t want to get too wrapped up in the excitement and immediately shifted their focus to the final match.
They also hope that there will be an all-Indonesian final because there is still Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan who are also challenging the Malaysian men’s doubles, Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin.
“The task is not finished, we want to focus on tomorrow’s final match. Hopefully we can meet our compatriots so it can be better, whoever the winner is still Indonesia,” said Rian.
Apart from Fajar/Rian, Indonesia has passed the men’s singles representative, Jonatan Christie, to the final after defeating Kidambi Srikanth of India 18-21, 21-7, 21-13.
Unfortunately, the steps of his national team mate, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting, were stopped by India’s representative Prannoy H.S. with 19-21, 21-19, 18-21. (ojn/bbs)
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