T

he Indonesian badminton team has made a change to its squad members just a few days before the beginning of the 26th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, citing declining performances among squad members.

The team’s coach for mixed doubles, Richard Maenaky, confirmed that he had replaced world No. 9 duo, Fran Kurniawan and Pia Zebadiah, with the world’s No. 21 pair, Muhammad Rijal and Debby Susanto.

“I had to make the decision because Pia and Fran failed to show solid cooperation between them,” Richard said on the sidelines of a media and athletes gathering in Jakarta on Monday, referring to their poor performance in the Denmark Open and France Open.

“They started to blame each other. OK, I thought, that’s it. My job is not only to handle them; I have other pairs to focus on,” Richard said, referring to world No. 4 Tontowi Ahmad-Liliyana Natsir and Rijal-Debby.

Frans and Pia were reportedly eliminated from the Games’ squad on Oct. 25 following their defeat in the first round of both the Denmark and France Open tournaments recently. Richard has a trial plan for the pair: to separate them for the upcoming Macau Open on Nov. 29-Dec. 4. Frans will be paired with Shendy Puspa Irawati, while Pia’s partner is still undecided.

The decision has triggered Pia to resign from the badminton national training camp.

“It is true that I moved out because I no longer have a partner at the camp,” Pia said as quoted by Antara news agency on Sunday.

Richard, however, said that Pia’s intention to quit the camp initially arose during the Bankaltim Indonesia Open tournament in September.

“There was nothing I could do. I refuse to force a reluctant athlete to remain in my squad,” he added.

Despite the reshuffle, Richard is confident that the host team’s goal of winning four gold medals is still attainable.

“We will see how Rijal and Debby will work out considering their current world ranking,” he added.

Rijal shared a similar optimism. “The deployment was indeed last minute, but we are ready. We will do our best to make an all-Indonesian, mixed doubles final possible,” he said.

Besides Tontowi-Liliyana and Rijal-Debby, Indonesia will also have Taufik Hidayat, Simon Santoso, Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka and Tommy Sugiarto competing in the men’s singles. In the women’s singles, the country has Adriyanti Firdasari, Lindaweni Fanetri, Maria Febe Kusumastuti and Bellatrix Manuputty.

Bona Septano-Mohammad Ahsan and Markis Kido-Hendra Setiawan will be representing the country in the men’s doubles, while Greysia Polii-Meiliana Jauhari and Vita Marissa-Nadya Melati will compete in the women’s doubles.

The badminton fixtures will start on Nov. 12 at Istora Senayan indoor stadium in Bung Karno sports complex in Central Jakarta.