T

he last Indonesian couple at the 2011 Korea Grand Prix Gold badminton tournament, Anneke Agustin-Nitya Maheswari failed to make their way into the final of the US$120,000 tournament after the duo were defeated by Shinta Mulia Sari-Lei Yao of Singapore.

Non-seeded Anneke-Nitya were defeated by Singaporean fourth-seeded 19-21, 21-16, 19-21 in the semifinals game that lasted only one hour and 15 minutes.

The Singaporeans earned the semis spot at the Korea Grand Prix Gold after beating the Chinese pair of Luo Ying and Luo Yu 21-18, 22-20.

The defeat was the Indonesian pair’s first loss to the Singaporean duo in the four times that they had faced off, head-to-head.

The pairs first met at the Malaysia Open Grand Prix Gold in May this year, where the Singaporeans lost 19-21, 10-21 at the second-round match. They met again at the final of the Vietnam Grand Prix Open in Aug. 28 and the Indonesians won again in the women’s doubles title with a 23-21, 26-24 victory.

The Singaporeans surrendered 11-21, 21-15, 20-22 after the first round match of the Macau Open in Nov. 30.

“We were not playing well today as there were many unforced errors that we made,” said Nitya, as quoted by the official website of the Indonesian Badminton Association (PBSI).

In the final, Shinta-Lei will meet Eom Hye Won-Jang Ye Na of Korea, who defeated China’s Tang Jinhua-Xia Huan in another semifinal match.

Korea dominated the tournament by putting its players in the final of all five categories, with all Korean finals occurring in the men’s single, men’s doubles and mixed doubles, while China and Singapore each had their players in women’s doubles and women singles. — JP