Minions Fall From Japanese Couples In Hong Kong

Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo / Marcus Fernaldi Gideon at the 2019 Hong Kong Open tournament (Photo: badmintonindonesia.org)

JAKARTA - Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo / Marcus Fernaldi Gideon alias Minions must acknowledge the superiority of Hiroyuki Endo / Yuta Watanabe, the men's doubles from Japan who are the fifth seed at the 2019 Hong Kong Open tournament. In the quarter-final round this afternoon, they lost by a score of 21-16 , 14-21, 20-22.

Their match has been going on several times. In four meetings, Minios lost the last two meetings, the 2019 Asia Championships and the 2019 Thailand Open.

Reporting from badmintonindonesia.org, in today's match, Kevin / Marcus actually has a big chance of winning when they are far ahead 16-10 to 19-15. However, at critical points, Endo / Watanabe played to put more pressure on Kevin / Marcus' defense. The Minions lost.

"Endo / Watanabe do not die easily, they also play more calmly. When we took the lead in the third game, there was actually no change in the game from our opponents. We were unlucky at the end of the game," said Kevin.

"Our overall performance was pretty decent, we were superior but we couldn't finish well. The opponent is not easy to penetrate."

Marcus

With this defeat, Kevin / Marcus must harbor hopes to defend the title they won last year. Last week they just defended their title at the 2019 Fuzhou China Open tournament.

"We feel that our overall performance is quite good, but we are still losing, so we still have a lot to improve," said Kevin.

Meanwhile, there are still three Indonesian representatives who will compete in the 2019 Hong Kong Open quarter-finals, namely two men's singles, Jonatan Christie and Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and mixed doubles Hafiz Faizal / Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.