Birmingham: Two Indonesian men’s singles players, Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Jonatan Christie, are confirmed to face each other in the final of the All England Open 2024 on Sunday.
This follows Jonatan who advanced to the final after securing a victory over India’s world no. 18 Lakshya Sen, in the semifinal match through a rubber game with a score of 21-12, 10-21, 21-15 in a tempo of 1 hour 7 minutes.
Highlights of Jonatan Christie vs. Lakshya Sen in the 2024 All England semi-finals:
“Thank God, all this is thanks to the generosity and kindness of God to me, Ginting, the men’s singles team, and the Indonesian team as well,” said the world no. 9 Christie.
“Maybe no one would have thought with some of our recent tournament results that were up and down, but we always try our best, we improve our shortcomings, we build chemistry and we try to be more solid,” Christie added.
Regarding the semi-final match against Sen, the two players were involved in a fairly tight fight for points at the start of the first game.
However, after the first break, Christie was able to control the rhythm and did not give Sen a chance to Sen to steal points from him.
However, Sen changed strategy took control, and won the second game.
In the final game, Sen, who was already confident because he won a landslide victory over Jonatan in the previous game, decided to be more aggressive in attacking. This strategy paid off and made Sen lead early in the third game.
However, Jonatan chose not to be tempted by the opponent’s playing style and appeared more patient, until he finally won the third game 21-15.
“In the deciding game, I just endured the rally, I didn’t want to be tempted to play fast, instead, I just tightened my defense. I just fought because God has determined the results so all I thought about was doing my best,” continued Christie.
Meanwhile, this is the first time in the last 30 years that the men’s singles final of the world’s oldest badminton tournament has featured two Indonesian players.
The last time the “All Indonesian Final” match occurred was at the 1994 All England when Hariyanto Arbi faced Ardy Wiranata.
With the meeting of Ginting and Christie in the men’s singles final on Sunday, Indonesia will guaranteed an All England Open men’s singles gold since Hariyanto Arbi won the tournament consecutively in 1993 and 1994.