Greysia/Apriyani Win Straight Game Over Birch/Smith In Tokyo Olympics Group A Second Match

Greysia/Apriyani (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Indonesian women's doubles, Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu, won the second qualifying match for Group A at the Tokyo Olympics. This pair won over Chloe Birch/Lauren Smith representative of England.

In terms of ranking, Greysia/Apriyani are indeed superior because they are currently ranked sixth in the world, while Birch/Smith are in 14th place in the world.

In the match held at Field 2 Musashino Forest Sport Plaza, Tokyo, Japan, Monday, Greysia/Apriyani defeated their opponent in two games with the final result 21-11, 21-13.

Launching Antara, since the first game, Greysia/Apriyani has been seen to dominate the game. While the resistance given by the British duo was fairly weak.

After a 4-4 draw, Greysia/Apriyani's steps became smoother to collect points until they finally won the first game with 21-11.

In the second game, Greysia/Apriyani was able to read the pattern of their opponent's play. They found Birch/Smith's weakness and exploited it to collect more points.

The battle this time seems to be easier for Greysia/Apriyani. In fact, their opponent was not even able to equalize, until finally Greysia / Apriyani closed the match which lasted for 39 minutes with a 21-13 victory.

After Birch/Smith, Greysia/Apriyani still have one final preliminary match in Group A of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which is against the host representative Yuki Fukushima/Sayaka Hirota on Tuesday (27/7).

Previously in the first elimination round, the Garuda representative also won over the Malaysian pair Chow Mei Kuan/Lee Meng Yean on Saturday (24/7) with a score of 21-14, 21-17.

Meanwhile, two Indonesian representatives have completed their matches in the group stage, namely the mixed doubles Group C Praveen Jordan/Melati Daeva Oktavianti which was defeated by the host representatives Yuta Watanabe/Arisa Higashino 13-21, 10-21.

Then, the men's doubles Group A Marcus Fernaldi Gideon / Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo who defeated the Indian pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy / Chirag Shetty with the final result 21-13, 21-12.

Next, there will be an appearance from the men's doubles Group D Mohammad Ahsan / Hendra Setiawan against Aaron Chia / Soh Wooi Yik from Malaysia at 17.20 WIB.