“First of all we would like to thank god for being able to make it past the first round. During the first set we were carried away by the opponent’s game. They play a long no lob plays and it was difficult to steal points from them, and we were not patient enough. But in the second set, we tried to control the game,” said Muhammad Rian Ardianto after the match.
On the other hand, according to Fajar Alfian, the victory that was clinched in the opening match is the result of the evaluation process during the past few weeks. This is because during the past recent tournaments, the World’s No. 7 pair is often knocked out of the competition in the early stages.
“It is true that during the past two to three tournaments, we have always lost either in the first or second round of the tournament. We have discussed this, hence we would like to make this tournament as our turning point and we don’t want to let our guard off. We try to keep our focus and want to recover from the past failures,” said Fajar.
“The recent failure was caused by technical issue and there were no other issues than that, but I think in terms of serve power I have decreased it. This competition is also to help us in collecting points for the Olympics, so we want to play all-out,” he added.
In contrast, the newly-paired Chinese team, Huang Kai Xiang/Liu Cheng claims that they are disappointed with today’s loss. “For this tournament the result is disappointing. We are preparing more for the future. We have lots to be evaluated. Coordination, chemistry and communication between us have to be further improved,” said Huang.
“Although we have had our preparation before, but during the match anything can happen. We have tried to control that and we have anticipated everything. But Fajar/Rian player very well today,” he said.
Upon the release of this report, Fajar/Rian still has to wait to find out whether they will play against whether they will play Liao Min Chun/Su Ching Heng from Taiwan or the Indian pair, Attri Manu/Reddy B. Summeth in the second round of Blibli Indonesia Open 2019 BWF World Tour Super 1000,
