“The last result in Istora was not what we hoped for. Probably it has been years since our last win in Istora, after that we could only reach final, final. During Indonesia Master we made it to the final but we couldn’t get the win. This year the tournament level is upgraded, we certainly want to defend our title. We are also observing that many young athletes are on-fire, thus Owi and I must find a way to play cleverly since from speed and power perspective we will definitely lost playing against them, even from age perspective they are also much younger from us, but on the fields we don’t want to lose easily and we will set the strategy on how to win on the field,” as expressed by Liliyana on the latest press conference in Hotel Sultan Jakarta.
With their experience and their badminton intelligence, Owi/Butet is back to defend their title, although the competition in the mixed doubles event are filled with numerous on-fire young players. On contrary, this year’s event will be the last Indonesia Open for Liliyana as she is planning to retire from the world of Badminton.
Liliyana said “(we) want to play our best performance in this year’s Indonesia Open, although we have won it last year and the curiosity is not that big anymore, but this year, on the last Indonesia Open for me, I want to be the best and I will certainly miss moments like this, especially playing as the host, the supporters are very amazing and I will certainly miss them.”
Wishing to be able to play her maximum capability on her last Indonesia Open before going for retirement, Butet claimed that she will show the best for the public and she also will certainly miss her best moments throughout her entire career. However, Butet will continue participating in several tournaments until the end of 2018 season.
When asked about her future after retirement, Butet claimed that she will run her own business and remain undecided on the potential coaching opportunity.
“By the end of the year after retiring from all these I have prepared myself to run my own business in property industry and will continue learning on how to run the business. I will not close my door to offers of being a part of badminton again, but I still don’t have any plans on being a coach or not as not all good players have the ability to coach others, so I really don’t know if have the ability or not, but definitely I want to lessen my involvement in badminton activities, because I think I have had enough with Badminton,” she added.
