D

espite some organizational snafus, the Djarum Indonesia Open Premier Superseries badminton tournament has emerged as one of the world’s best tournaments, according to athletes and organizers.

The event, whose US$600,000 purse places it at No. 2 behind the $1.2 million Korea Open, gained wide appreciation from all parties involved.

Badminton World Federation (BWF) event director Darren Parks said that the Indonesia Open fit the BWF’s goal to have more people play a better badminton game and learn about the sport.

“This event is one of the best two this year, [beside] the All England championships in Birmingham which is also very good. The Indonesia Open can be equally ranked to that,” Parks told reporters at the tournament’s final day at the Bung Karno Stadium Complex in Central Jakarta, on Sunday.

Tournament director Mimi Irawan said that main sponsor PT Djarum would add $50,000 in prize money for the event every year until the purse reached $750,000.

This year men’s singles champion, Lee Chong Wei, lauded the event. “The prize money is increasing. We also get better hotel arrangements and a warm-up court,” Lee told reporters on Sunday after winning his final match against Peter Hoeg Gade of Denmark.

Top-seeded men’s doubles Mathias Boe also praised organizers.

“The light is better this year. I like being here. It is a great country, and fantastic. [Indonesia] is the home place for badminton with all the noise.”

Boe and partner Carsten Mogensen lost to Indonesians Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan in the quarterfinals.

Despite the improvements, he criticized the stadium’s air condition system for affecting the matches.

“We like to play in a place that is not so drafty. But that’s the condition in Asia… It is very difficult for the players to adapt to the different stadium,” he added.

Chief organizer Jacob Rusdianto said the use of the building was unavoidable.

“We will have other venues three years in the future for the event,” he said, adding that the organizers would continue to use the 49-year-old Istora venue due to the shortage of qualified indoor stadiums in Jakarta.

Other players complained about accommodations, including Indonesian ace shuttler Taufik Hidayat who chose to move from the Sultan Hotel, the official venue, to the Hotel Mulia.

Kamilla Ryter Juhl of Denmark said she often went to the Hotel Mulia for better dinner though she stayed at the Sultan.

Indonesia’s mixed doubles Fran Kurniawan said that the Hotel Sultan failed to favorably treat some players.

Despite complaints on accom-modations and air conditioning, former Indonesian shuttler and
current Malaysia coach Rexy Maenaky had praise for this year’s tournament.

“In overall organization, the open has been great. In previous events, we usually had blank spots here and there, but this time everything was packed, looked different and was good,” he added.

Rexy said that the tournament was better packaged that the Korea Open.

“The Korea Open has bigger prize money, but it looks not much better than lower Superseries GP Gold events.”

Rexy said organizers should pay more attention to the courts. “During the quarterfinals round, we had three available courts.

“Yet, the set-up was unbalanced because wind and other things disturbed the games, which turned things bad.”