Jonathan Won Easily In The First Badminton Match Tokyo 2020 Beating Aram Mahmoud

Indonesian badminton player Jonatan Cristie and other players when leaving for Japan. (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - National badminton player Jonatan Christie found no obstacles in securing victory in the inaugural match of the Group G men's singles elimination phase at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Reported by Antara, Saturday, July 24, in a match that took place without spectators at Musashino Forest Sport Plaza, Jonathan won over Aram Mahmoud with two straight games 21-8, 21-14. Aram is one of 28 athletes who are members of the Olympic Refugee Team (ROT) in Tokyo 2020. He is a badminton player from Syria, but had to flee to the Netherlands in 2015 due to war raging in his country. In the first game, Aram opened the points after tricking the direction of the blow that Jonathan could not anticipate. However, Jonathan quickly equalized the points and took the lead. Even so, Jonathan's game tempo was fairly slow in the first interval. The 2018 Asian Games gold medalist just warmed up his performance in the second interval, even creating a 13-7 advantage over Aram. Jonathan only needed 13 minutes to secure the first game.

In the second game, Aram showed an increase in the level of the game. The 24-year-old athlete repeatedly scored points with impressive return shots. In fact, he was also able to overcome Jonathan's netting game and scored additional points. At 19-13, Aram had added one point after Jonathan's punch hit the net. However, Jonathan was able to overcome the final hurdle and bagged a straight two-game victory with a score of 21-14 after playing for 29 minutes.