Sunday January 20, 2013
Ahsan-Setiawan need more matches to perform better
MALAYSIAN OPEN BADMINTON CHAMPIONSHIPS
PUTRA STADIUM, BUKIT JALIL (Jan 15-20)
NEWLY formed Indonesian pair Mohammad Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan believe they need a lot more matches together to make their partnership gel.
The pair, who came together after the London Olympics last year had some good wins in their first four tournaments.
They were semi-finalists at the Denmark Open and also reached the last eight of the Hong Kong Open.
Yesterday, Ahsan-Setiawan showed that they’re just as capable of being a top pair after easily outclassing China’s Chai Biao-Liu Xiaolong in the semi-finals of the Maybank Malaysian Open.
The pair won 21-12, 21-11 in just 24 minutes in a demonstration of just how good they can be.
Nevertheless, Setiawan, who is the older of the two at 29-year-old, believes that their partnership is still at the infant stage akin to South Korea’s Ko Sung-hyun-Lee Yong-dae their opponents in today’s Malaysian Open final.
“We’ve had some good results but we are not even near world class standards yet,” said Setiawan.
“There is still a lot to be done and were still trying to make our partnership click properly.”
Ahsan also added that they still need to compete more together in order to improve as a pair.
“We’ve only competed in four tournaments. That is not enough,” said Ahsan.
“With more training, I’m sure we can be a top pair too. But it’ll take some time.”
Both Setiawan and Ahsan, however, refused to acknowledge Sung-hyun-Yong-dae’s abilities as a pair, even though the Koreans have drawn rave reviews since teaming up.
“We haven’t played them before so we don’t really know how good they really are. Let us face them first to find out just where they stand against us,” added Ahsan.
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