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ride is an understatement to describe Indonesian badminton lovers'€™ feelings after their best shuttlers snatched two titles at the prestigious US$400,000 All England championships on Sunday.

The National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, England, saw the Indonesian mixed doubles team defending champions Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir complete a three-peat with a 21-13, 21-17 defeat of Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei of China in a final reminiscent of their title match last year, which finished with the same scores and lasted almost the same period of time.

Hours earlier, world number one pair of Hendra Setiawan/Mohammad Ahsan ended the country'€™s 11-year title drought in the men'€™s doubles after winning 21-19, 21-19 over Japan'€™s Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa. The last time Indonesia won the men'€™s doubles was in 2003 with Candra Wijaya/Sigit Budiarto.

Praise was quick to pour in for the winning teams at home, including from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Indonesian Badminton Association (PBSI) chairman Gita Wirjawan, who is now campaigning to run for president for Yudhoyono'€™s Democratic Party.

Despite the commendations, however, it seems the players refrained from being drowned in the jubilation. They immediately set their sights on more achievements on other battlefields, including the Olympic gold medal, which eluded Indonesian badminton players for the first time in 2012 and, of course, the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup trophies, which have been missing from the PBSI'€™s cabinet for more than a decade.

'€œWe are glad and grateful for the hat trick [at the All England championships] but we aren'€™t satisfied yet. We want more [titles],'€ said Liliyana, whose tandem with Tontowi has now equaled the achievements of South Korean legend Park Joo-bong/Chung Myung-hee at the All England in 1989-1991.

Ahsan and Hendra, the reigning world champions, have put the Thomas Cup men'€™s team title and Asian Games gold medal on their wishlist this year. '€œWe are grateful with the [All England] result but we are not content if we do not produce more titles in the future,'€ Ahsan said.

The All England success has rekindled Indonesia'€™s hopes to restore its supremacy in the badminton world, which has seen China in control for the last two decades.

The national shuttlers will only have a few days to rest before gearing up for the next tournaments. The Thomas and Uber Cup men'€™s and women'€™s team championships will take place on May 18-25 in New Delhi. Bringing back home the trophies is an ambitious, but not impossible, target for PBSI following the morale-boosting wins at the All England. Indonesia last won the Thomas Cup in 2002 and Uber Cup in 1996.

The next key events are the World Championships in August in Denmark and the Asian Games in September in Incheon, South Korea.

The ultimate goal for the badminton players is winning Olympic gold. With two years left until the next Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, Indonesian shuttlers will have to keep up with each other and foreign players to qualify for the quadrennial event.

Gita said the two All England titles were only part of a long journey to regaining past glory, when Indonesia ruled the roost in singles, doubles and team events.

Former world female singles champion Susi Susanti, who won the All England title in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994 and the Olympic gold medal in 1992, said hard work was the prescription the national players had to follow to survive and win the tight competition.

Sustainable regeneration, which is perhaps the loophole in Indonesia'€™s badminton development, requires PBSI to give as many opportunities to compete at the international level to young talents to make them ready to fill in the shoes of their senior teammates.

Youth and Sports Minister Roy Suryo highlighted the lack of young players who could match the performance of the two All England winning pairs. It will be the homework for PBSI head of athletes development Rexy Mainaky to prove the critics wrong.

Not only PBSI and its coaching team, but all badminton stakeholders in the country will be responsible for developing national players. Financial, technological and moral support is all that the badminton team needs to take on the future challenge.

Badminton has again and again saved the country'€™s blushes. Amid skepticism about Indonesia'€™s general shape in sports and frustration in combating rampant corruption, badminton players swinging their rackets to the limit to give the nation longed-for pride.

The author is staff writer at The Jakarta Post.