Indonesia Dominates: All-Indonesian Badminton Final Shocks World

The Australian Open is part of the BWF World Tour Super 500 system and is the last prestigious tournament taking place before the World Tour Finals (annual finals) of badminton.

This year’s tournament also brought together many players from the world’s top 10 such as An Se Young, Miyazaki, Intanon and Rankireddy-Shetty… But then it was the Indonesian athletes who dominated the final phase of the tournament.

Apart from the men’s singles event, Indonesian badminton stars dominated 4 of the 5 tournament finals, from the women’s singles event to the doubles events.

In women’s singles, Putri Wardani (7th in the world) was seeded No. 2 and she maintained a very stable performance throughout the tournament.

Wardani did not concede a set in his first three matches. In the semi-final, the Indonesian fought a fierce battle against Michelli Li (seeded No. 7) and won with a score of 17-21, 21-16, 21-18.

In the final, Wardani will face the player who has dominated women’s singles badminton for the past two years, An Se Young.

The men’s singles was the only event of the tournament where the Indonesian players did not shine, with the elimination in the first round of star Jonatan Christie.

On the contrary, the Indonesian men’s doubles players shone by transforming the final into a real civil war in the badminton village of the archipelago. The Alfian-Fikri pair (seeded No. 5) will face the Indra-Joaquin pair.

Indra and Joaquin, both in their 20s, are promising Indonesian players. In the semi-final, they created a surprise by beating the Malaysian pair Fei and Izzuddin, seeded number two.

Another 100% Indonesian final took place in the women’s doubles. The Indonesian players were not even seeded, but still defeated a series of formidable opponents to reach the final.

Indonesia will therefore win at least two titles in this tournament, and could even win four. This is a real shock for the world of badminton, because until now, only China had a sufficiently large number of high-level athletes to dominate such a prestigious competition.