Indonesian Badminton Coach: Butet/Owi to Focus on Big Tournaments

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Richard Mainaky, the coach of mixed-double shuttlers at the National Badminton Training Center said Tontowi Ahmad/Liliyana Natsir don’t want to be burdened by wide variety of international badminton tournaments. The runner-ups of 2015 All England, said Richard, are only targeted to win titles in four big tourmanents.

“We only targeting titles in four big tournaments for them, namely 2015 All England, Sudirman Cup, 2015 World Badminton Championship, and 2016 Olympic,” said Richard during the press conference in Jakarta  on Thursday, April 23.

Although Tontowi/Liliyana –more familiarly known as Owi/Butet-- had only secured runner-up place in 2015 Alll England but they still have two big tournaments to go, the world championship in Jakarta on August and Brazil olympic in 2016.

Further Richard explained that the double have tested new strategy that will be needed to face world’s number one mixed-double, Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei of China.

“The pair will be Owi/Butet’s strongest opponents in 2016 Olympic,” Richard said.

Besides Owi/Butet, Indonesia has three other mixed-double shuttler who currently ranked the world’s top 15 such as Riky Widianto/Richi Puspita (ranked 11), Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto (ranked 12), and Edi Subaktiar/Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja (ranked 13).

ANTARA