Simon Santoso, the last host player to win men's singles in 2012.
Smashing Stats: Indonesia Open 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024
TEXT BY PREM KUMAR | BADMINTONPHOTO
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The season’s third HSBC BWF World Tour Super 1000 event, KAPAL API Indonesia Open 2024, continues for another year at the Istora Senayan.
Digest these stats about the 42-year-old competition.
The hosts are the only nation to accomplish a sweep, doing it four times (1983, 1996, 1997, 2001). Japan and China possess seeded hopes in all five categories this season.
The Japanese have produced titlists at seven of the last eight editions.
Peculiarly, they are yet to ace men’s doubles but are able to count on sixth seeds Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi to correct that anomaly.
They are also waiting for their maiden mixed doubles champions. Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino are seeded third.
Record forconsecutive gold medals also belongs to a mixed pair – Indonesians Tri Kusharjanto/Minarti Timur’s five were bagged from 1995-1999.
Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong can move to within two of equalling that.
Four of the seven women’s singles seeds are Chinese, the highest amount in a discipline in five years. Japan had the same number in women’s doubles in 2019.
If Chen Yu Fei defends her title, she will become the first women’s singles shuttler since compatriot Li Xuerui in 2014 to win two on the bounce.
All the remaining top seeds have had previous success, although Chen Qing Chen/Jia Yi Fan’s solitary strike came seven years ago. That 2017 triumph remains China’s last in the discipline.
However, the event they haven’t aced the longest is men’s singles, in which Singapore Open finalists Shi Yu Qi (2) and Li Shi Feng (6) are seeded.
China have not celebrated a men’s singles champion after Xiong Guobao won in 1989.
Indonesia’s lengthiest wait for glory meanwhile, is in women’s singles. Ellen Angelina’s 2001 title was their most recent.
Third seed Jonatan Christie and seventh seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting can fix the 12-year lapse in men’s singles, which hasn’t crowned an Indonesian after Simon Santoso in 2012.
Likewise, eighth seeds Apriyani Rahayu/Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti have the incentive of becoming the first local women’s doubles queens since Vita Marissa/Liliyana Natsir in 2008.
Success for them will make Indonesia the outright leaders in the discipline with 14 titles. Currently, they are tied on 13 with China.
While Lee Chong Wei is their latest titlist (2016), men’s doubles is the category Malaysia have gone the longest without winning. Fifth seeds Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik are their contenders to repeat Zakry Latif/Fairuzizuan Tazari’s 2008 exploits.
Seo Seung Jae is the lone player seeded in two departments (third in men’s doubles with Kang Min Hyuk and fourth with Chae Yu Jung in mixed). No player has taken two events at the same edition since China’s Zhang Yawen in 2006 (women’s and mixed doubles).
Despite their pedigree, Korea are going through a drought in mixed doubles. Kim Dong Moon/Ra Kyung Min won their previous mixed crown 21 years ago.
A third Nami Matsuyama/Chiharu Shida victory would make them the joint-most successfulwomen’s doubles shuttlers alongside Rosiana Tendean, Eliza Nathanael and Yu Yang.
Standout Stat: Starting 2011, Chinese and Japanese pairs have won 11 of the 12 women’s doubles finals.