Challenging situation for Indonesia’s Singles shuttlers to qualify for 2012 Olympic Games
To qualify for the 2012 Olympics Games has become a challenging task for Indonesia’s male and female shuttlers in the category of Singles. Their quivering performance for the last 11 months has pushed them out of the top positions in Men’s and Women’s Singles categories.
In the category of Men’s Singles, Simon Santoso and Taufik Hidayat are the potential players from Indonesian who can qualify for the Olympic Games. Currently, Simon is ranked at number 7 whereas Taufik has been placed at number 12 in the Men’s Singles world standings.
According to the rules of the Badminton World Federation (BWF), a country can have two entries in each category if its players are ranked in the top-8 positions. Indonesia can have two players in the form of Simon, who is currently at 7th position and Taufik, who is expected to get into top-10 on Thursday, December 29, when BWF will reveal its weekly world rankings.
Taufik, who is the former World Champion and Olympic gold medallist, has won the Men’s Singles title at the India Open Grand Prix Gold, on Sunday, December 25, at Lucknow, India. This victory will help him in getting higher position in the world rankings.
In the category of Women’s Singles, the World Number 36 Lindaweni Fanetri and the World Number 37 Adriyanti Firdasari are the only hopes for Indonesia to qualify for the mega event.
But now it is virtually impossible for them to find two positions in the Olympic Games. However, if they deliver extraordinary performance in all upcoming tournaments and get higher ranking then they can qualify for the event. But their chances are quite scanty.
Hadi Nazri, the PBSI Head of Athlete Development said that he is optimistic for the shuttlers to perform well in the forthcoming events.
He said, “We are still bringing them to recovery and hopefully by the start of the year they will be able to compete again in Korea and Malaysia."
He further added, “Our previous target was to reach the world top four [in singles], but the women continue to drift afar from the top 10, while the men are stagnant.”
Now all these Indonesian shuttlers will compete at the upcoming tournament of Korea Open Premier Super Series, which will start from January 3, in Korea.
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