“Of course I’m nervous, but it is more towards feeling enthusiastic to be able to be paired with Tontowi, this will be our first time playing in Indonesia Open and it is our home,” said Winny Oktavina Kandow as quoted from Detik.com.

To be able to debut in the tournament with last year’s Indonesia Open winner, Winny claimed that she does not feel burdened. According to her, this will be her chance to prove herself that she has the spirit to play all out and catch up with her senior.

“No I don’t feel burdened; I rather feel that this is my chance to prove myself that I can catch up with Owi (Tontowi Ahmad). If I look at Owi’s track record with Butet (Lilyana Natsir), it was either ending the tournament as a champion or as a finalist. That’s why I want to have that kind of records as well,” She said.

Tontowi Ahmad/Winny Oktavina Kandouw have just been paired on February 2019, around two months after Lilyana Natsir was officialy retired from Badminton world. After playing as a pair for almost five months, Tontowi/Winny has joined seven tournaments. Out of those seven tournaments, Tontowi/Winny managed to make it to four of those tournaments’ quarter-final stage.

Speaking about those records, Winny claimed that she has improved herself and she is starting to get along well with the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics gold medalist. “We are starting to get along well during the game, no more miscommunication. But it’s me that have to be more focused and concentrate so that I will perform better during the game,” said the PB Tangkas Jakarta’s alumnus.

On the other hand, Tontowi/Winny will face the Indian pair, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Ashwini Ponnappa on the first round of Indonesia Open 2019 BWF World Tour Super 1000.