[font=Helvetica, Arial]Candra, Sigit into semis in Korea[/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica]The Jakarta Post, Jakarta[/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica]The veteran men's doubles pairing of Candra Wijaya and Sigit Budiarto took their second seeded scalp on Friday to book a place in the semifinals of badminton's Noonnoppi Korea Open.[/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] The 2003 All England champions, unseeded in the tournament after undergoing several partner switches in recent years, beat third seeded Kwok Wa Liu and Albert Susanto Njoto of Hong Kong 15-8, 15-5 in 40 minutes in Incheon City. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] On Thursday, the Indonesians had clinched a closely fought match with sixth seeded Koreans Tae Kwon ha and Bang Eun Yim. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] Up next on Saturday is the challenge of local favorites Jae Sung Jung and Jae Jin Lee. It will be an opportunity to avenge the loss of fellow Indonesians Luluk Hadiyanto and Alven Yulianto, who were defeated in straight games by the Koreans in the second round. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] In the other half of the draw, China's Zhendong Guo and Zhongbo Xie meet second seeded Danes Jen Eriksen and Martin Lundgaard. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] Earlier in the day, the lone remaining Indonesian pair in the mixed doubles, Nova Widianto and Lilyana Natsir, also made the last four with a 15-6, 15-7 victory over Zhongbo and Yawen Zhang of China. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] The fifth seeds face Korean seventh seeds Jae Jin Lee and Hyo Jung Lee, who drubbed their compatriots Yong Dae Lee and Jung Eun Ha 15-3, 15-2. The easy result was surprising as Ha and Lee defeated top seeded Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms in the first round. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] In the men's singles, first seed Peter Gade of Denmark fought off Malaysia's Sairul Amar Ayob 15-11, 15-4 to set up a semifinal against local player Park Sung Hwan. [/font] [font=Arial, Helvetica] In the women's singles, Pi Hongyan reached the semis by coming back from a game down to beat Eriko Hirose of Japan. The top seed next plays talented Wang Chen of China.[/font]
Candra and Sigit were very composed and consistent this time. Better than they seemed against Im and Ha or even against the Malaysians. Yi Jae-jin made some mistakes. He may have been tired after being pushed to 3 games in the mixed doubles just 2 hours earlier. On Thursday, against Alven and Luluk, they didn't seem to make any mistakes. Every point the Indonesians got was out of sheer brilliance. Yesterday, we were cringing every time the Koreans jumped for a smash but Sigit and Candra were amazing defensively. I still predict that this Korean pair will be in the top 5, if not number one, in the world by the end of 2005. They are, in fact, two-time Korean champions. They beat Yi Dong-soo and Yoo Yong-sung the last two times and Ha Tae-kwon and Kim Dong-moon in December's nationals. They don't have that much international experience and they seem to have had some trouble with Indonesian pairs as Candra and Sigit have beaten them twice and Albertus Susanto Njoto and his partner from Hong Kong beat them in the Indonesian Open. The round of 16 at this event seems to be the first time they have beaten a top Indonesian pair. And did they ever! But none of this is statistically significant considering how few tournaments we're talking about.
i hope Candra/Sigit can win too... that recent last time they got a title is in China Open... but they never play at all... i wanna see them play
