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Indonesia Open champion Liliyana feels lucky to have played at JCC
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Indonesia's Liliyana Natsir (front) and Tontowi Ahmad (back) celebrate after winning the mixed doubles title of the 2017 Indonesia Open badminton tournament in Jakarta on Sunday. The Indonesians defeated world number one duo Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen of China 22-20, 21-15 in the finals. (JP/Seto Wardhana.)
T
he 2017 Indonesia Open champion Liliyana Natsir says that the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) brought some luck to her and Tontowi Ahmad.
Liliyana and Tontowi won their first Indonesia Open title in mixed doubles play on Sunday, after beating world number one pair Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen of China 22-20, 21-15 in a 45-minute battle. In previous Indonesia Open runoffs, Liliyana and Tontowi’s best performance was just reaching two finals.
With the Sunday victory the pair achieved an additional milestone, which previously included winning the 2016 Olympic Games, the 2015 All England Open and 2013 BWF World Championships.
“I guess the Istora [indoor stadium] is a jinxed venue for us [as we’ve never won in there]. We were so lucky that JCC wasn’t,” Liliyana said in a statement.
The Istora is a traditional venue for the Indonesia Open. This year, the event was moved to the nearby JCC because of ongoing renovations on the Istora, which will be used for the 2018 Asian Games.
“Winning the Indonesia Open means a lot to us. [Before this] we had won the Olympics, as well as the world championships and All England titles, but we hadn’t been victorious in our home country,” added Liliyana, who pushed herself to the limit as she suffered from an earlier knee injury throughout the week-long open. (nkn)
