Greysia Polii Ready To Retire, PBSI Moves Quickly To Find Apriyani Rahayu Partners

Greysia Polii/Apriyani Rahayu (INSTAGRAM @greyspolii)

JAKARTA — Regeneration in the women's doubles sector is currently being prepared by the Central Board of the Indonesian Badminton Association (PP PBSI). The national badminton parent is looking for a replacement for Greysia Polii.

Greysia is currently at the end of her career. He plans to hang up his racket this year, so PBSI must move to find Apriyani Rahayu's playing partner.

"For women's doubles this year, we are indeed preparing for Apriyani's new partner. So, we will start with two partners," said women's doubles coach Eng Hian in a virtual press conference on Friday, January 28.

However, PBSI will not rush to remodel the Greysia/Apriyani pair. With the consideration of the new partner, Apriyani had to make many adjustments in order to maintain her ranking and at the same time qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The mother of badminton in the country will conduct a strict selection for Apriyani's potential partner. Moreover, women's doubles want to be prepared to repeat the success of the Olympics in Paris 2024 later.

“Greysia herself will be paired with young players so that there is an adjustment. Then there will be selection as well and preparation to pursue the ranking points. Because this new couple is aiming for the Olympics (Paris 2024)," said Eng Hian.

Greysia/Apriyani became part of the 88 athletes who were called to the 2022 PBSI National Training Center. Some of them were athletes who had joined in the previous year, while others were new athletes who passed through the national selection and achievement monitoring pathways.

Of the 88 names of athletes who were called, there was no mixed doubles pair of Praveen Melati/Melati Daeva Oktavianti and Hafiz Faizal/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.

The names of the four athletes were not included in the list of attachments in the decision letter (SK) summoning Number SKEP/007/1.3/I/2022 which was signed by the General Chairperson of Agung Firman Sampurna and Secretary General Moh. Fadil Imran.

Meanwhile, the men's doubles pair Hendra Setiawan and Mohammad Ahsan returned to the National Training Center. The couple nicknamed The Daddies were summoned to Cipayung with sparring status.