The All England championship has once again proved a mine field for Indonesian players, with only four pairs remaining in contention for the title in the world'€™s oldest badminton tournament.

Indonesia came to the tournament at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham, England, with 24 individuals and pairs, but only Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir, Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto, Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo and Greysia Polii/Nitya Krishinda Maheswari have managed to advance.

Tontowi/Liliyana and Praveen/Debby sealed their quarterfinal tickets on Thursday on a day when men'€™s doubles champions Mohammad Ahsan and Hendrawan Setiawan crashed out against their Chinese opponents.

Later in the day, Marcus/Kevin assured that Indonesia would have representatives in the men'€™s doubles after overcoming Manu Attri/B. Sumeeth Reddy of India 21-13, 19-21, 21-15.

In the women'€™s doubles, Greysia/Nitya defeated Chae Yoo-jung/Kim So-yeong of South Korea 21-17, 21-19.

The Indonesian pair was trailing throughout the first game before turning the tables and surging to victory.

'€œIn the opening game, we were drawn into their fast game. Even if we had restrained ourselves, that would have caused a problem,'€ Nitya said in a release.

The pair took a 3-0 lead in the second game and extended it to 11-4 before letting the opposing duo off the hook, losing seven consecutive points to see the score at 11-11.

Each pair took the lead in alternate rallies before the Indonesians sealed the game 21-19.

'€œHaving met each other twice, they seemed able to read our game. On the other hand, we had also assessed their game,'€ Greysia said.

Greysia and Nitya were set to face Tang Jinhua/Zhong Qianxin of China in quarterfinals late on Friday.

'€œWe have faced them with their different partners. To overcome them we will study their game through a taped video,'€ Greysia said.

Meanwhile, Marcus and Kevin had to play three games to beat their Indian opponents.

'€œIn the opening game, they seemed to be reading our game. In the second, they came up offensively and we retreated on the defensive. We bounced back to take the third game,'€ Kevin said.

'€œTheir serves are rather difficult to anticipate,'€ Marcus added. The victory won them a match against Mads Conrad-Petersen/Mads Pieler Kolding of Denmark in the quarterfinals.

In the men'€™s and women'€™s singles, Indonesia was swept aside, with Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka the last player to fall, losing to Sho Sasaki of Japan 18-21, 21-14, 21-18. Simon Santoso and Tommy Sugiarto had already crashed out, as had Lindaweni Fanetri, Bellaetrix Manuputty and Millicent Wiranto in the women'€™s singles.

Their failure to advance means that Indonesia is facing the bleak prospect of a continued title drought in the singles events.

Heryanto Arbi was Indonesia'€™s last men'€™s singles champion with back-to-back titles in 1993 and 1994. Heryanto had the chance to make it a hat-trick, but was beaten by Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen in the final.

Taufik Hidayat came close to adding two titles to Indonesia'€™s laurel cabinet but lost to Peter Gade in 1999 and Xia Xuanze in 2000. The last player to reach the final was Budi Santoso in 2002, but Chen Hong thwarted his bid.

Susi Susanti remains the only Indonesian women'€™s singles player to win All England, bringing home the cup in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994.

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