Indonesian Men's Singles Take 15 Years To Return To The All England Semifinals

Men's singles Anthony Sinisuka Ginting during his appearance in the 2024 All England quarter-finals against Viktor Axelsen (Doc. PBSI)

JAKARTA Indonesian men's singles need 15 years to set foot again in the semifinals of the oldest tournament in the world of All England. Tickets for the round were obtained by two mainstays of Indonesia Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Jonatan Christie in this year's edition. Both won over Viktor Axelsen and Shi Yuqi, respectively.

Anthony Ginting passed the quarter-finals after struggling to bounce back from losing his first game against Axelsen and closing the game with a score of 8-21, 21-18, and 21-19.

This is Ginting's fifth win of 18 competitive meetings with the Danish representative and his first since he last won on January 18, 2020 at the Indonesia Masters.

This victory also ended 11 consecutive defeats against players who were ranked first in the world and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medalist.

Meanwhile, Jonathan confirmed a ticket to the semifinals after Shi Yuqi decided to withdraw due to injury. The Chinese representative lost in the first game before withdrawing when the second game was about to start.

The victory in the quarter-finals made Anthony and Jonathan the first men's singles to reach the semifinals since Taufik Hidayat stepped foot in that round in 2009.

This is also the first time since 1999 that Indonesia has two men's singles representatives in the semifinals of the tournament. In 1999, two Indonesian representatives in the men's singles semifinal were Taufik Hidayat and Budi Santoso.

Anthony Ginting will next meet French single Christo Popov, who reached the semifinals after stopping Japan's representative, Koki Watanabe.

Jonathan will meet Lakshya Sen. The men's singles from India reached the top four after beating Malaysia's mainstay singles, Lee Zii Jia.