Jakarta –
Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo/Marcus Fernaldi Gideon stopped in the second round of the Denmark Open 2021. The world’s number 1 doubles were eliminated by their juniors.
At Odense Sports Park, Thursday (10/21/2021), Kevin/Marcus were actually able to win in the first game over Muhammad Shohibul Fikri/Bagas Maulana, with a score of 21-17.
However, The Minions were then eliminated because they lost in the next two games, with a score of 17-21 and 21-23, respectively. Kevin / Marcus also stopped in the second half.
The failure to advance to the quarterfinals was a surprise because Kevin/Marcus were quite superior to their juniors. Shohibul/Bagas is currently ranked 41 in the world and has relatively little experience. Their victory over Kevin/Marcus in the BWF World Tour Super 1000 tournament was a surprise.
The coach for the men’s doubles, Herry Iman Pierngadi, said that the Kevin/Marcus defeat was because the 2017 and 2018 All England champions lost fresh to their juniors.
“Lowbat. The conditions are not fresh,” Herry said in a short message to detikSport, when asked about his temporary evaluation of the Minions’ defeat against his juniors.
What Herry said is fair. Kevin/Marcus have been in Europe for almost a month. They have also played super heavy championships such as the Sudirman Cup and Thomas Cup. In addition, the two have often been mainstays since the Sudirman Cup preliminary round against Canada, Denmark, and Malaysia.
Meanwhile, in the Thomas Cup, Kevin/Marcus were in poor condition. Especially Kevin, who was not fresh yet, so he was not selected to face Taiwan in the last match of the preliminary round.
Both of them were only revealed when they faced Malaysia in the quarterfinals. In the semifinal match, Kevin/Marcus also became a mainstay against the host’s representative Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen. The match was quite energy draining even though Kevin/Marcus finally won with a score of 21-13, 10-21, 21-15.
Not surprisingly, in the final against China the coach again decided to park Marcus because of his unfit condition. Kevin was then paired with young player Daniel Martin.
However, Kevin / Daniel did not play in the 2020 Thomas Cup final because Jonathan Christie was able to ensure Indonesia’s victory over China with a score of 3-0 in the 2020 Thomas Cup.
(mcy/krs)
– .
