Vantaa: The 2021 Sudirman Cup is scheduled to start in two days, and the Indonesian badminton players were getting acquainted to life in Finland with their first tie against Russia was set to kick off on September 26, 2021.
After a 20 minutes bus ride from their hotel to the training arena, the Indonesian shuttlers started their first 90-minute training session on Thursday afternoon Finland time.
The Tokyo Olympics women’s doubles gold medalist – Greysia Polii, and other players showed a lot of passion and enthusiasm during the practice.
“Today the Indonesian badminton team was able to start their first practice. Everyone was so excited to hit some shuttlecocks,” said Rionny Mainaky, Head of Development and Achievement of the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI).
The coaches first split up the World No. 1, No. 2, and No. 7 men’s doubles pairs during the practice to have them play three versus three, with Hendra Setiawan, Marcus Fernaldi Gideon, and Rian Ardianto took on Mohammad Ahsan, Kevin Sanjaya Skamaljo, and Fajar Alfian before having them start playing two versus two.
“It’s good to be able to practice again today. I already feeling stiff just because I didn’t practice for two days,” said the 2008 Beijing Olympics men’s doubles gold medalist – Hendra Setiawan.
In the men’s singles, World No. 5 Anthony Sinisuka Ginting was sparring with World No. 7 Jonatan Christie.
The women’s doubles practice session saw Greysia Polii paired up with Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti to compete against Apriyani Rahayu/Ribka Sugiarto.
For the mixed doubles, World No. 4 Praveen Jordan partnered with Pitha Haningtyas Mentari to play a match against Rinov Rivaldy and Melati Daeva Oktavianti.
According to PBSI’s physical trainer, Iwan Hermawan, this first practice session was mainly for the purpose of recovery for players after a long 14-hour flight from Jakarta to Vantaa.
“Hopefully the players could recover on time and maintain some of their fitness through this practice session,” said Hermawan.
“It’s good to work on our physical fitness after two days of not training,” said World No. 1 men’s doubles player – Marcus Fernaldi Gideon.
