Bagas/Fikri Face Aaron Chia/So Wooi Yik In Denmark Open Final

Men's doubles Bagas Maulana/Muhammad Shohibul Fikri (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The pair Bagas Maulana/Muhammad Shohibul Fikri advanced to the final round of the Danish Open 2023 men's doubles after defeating compatriots, Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto in the semifinals, Saturday night Odense time.

Bagas/Fikri beat the first seed with rubber games 21-11, 16-21, 21-12 in a 54-minute match which took place at Jyske Bank Arena.

"We are happy to be back in the final but there are still matches tomorrow so we have to refocus on preparing everything," Bagas said through official PP PBSI information in Jakarta, Sunday, quoted by Antara.

Fikri said the key to their victory over the men's doubles ranked second in the world was mutual trust and maintaining good communication during the match.

In addition, they still feel improved performance from a number of previous tournaments so they are motivated to continue the positive trend at the Denmark Open.

"After losing in the first round of the 2023 Arctic Open, we just practice as usual. But indeed there is added enthusiasm for this tournament. Our good momentum from the World Championships and the China Open wants us to continue, and Alhamdulillah, now we can go to the final," said Fikri.

Regarding strategy, they also maintain a game pattern like the previous rounds, namely by insisting on dictating the opponent to follow their pattern.

"We apply the same pattern as yesterday, we don't want to get carried away by the opponent's pattern. We focus on how to keep playing with what we want. We can also anticipate what Fajar/Rian wants to do today," said Bagas.

In the final round of the BWF Super 750 tournament, the All England 2022 champion will meet Aaron Chia/So Wooi Yik from Malaysia. Based on their meeting records, so far the Malaysian duo still excels over Bagas/Fikri with a score of 0-3.

All of these meetings took place in 2023, namely at the Singapore Open, Indonesia Open, and Japan Open tournaments.

"Hopefully we can show the maximum as we did from the first half to today," said Fikri.