It was just not meant to be for Indonesian pair Greysia Polii-Apriyani Rahayu at the E-Plus Badminton Asia Team Championships whey suffered yet another heart break against the pair of Misaki Matsutomo-Ayaka Takashi of Japan.
The world No.7 Greysia-Apriyani were not able to break the duck against the world No.2 pair Misaki-Ayaka in a hard fought battle that lasted close to an hour and a half.
Instead, Greysia-Apriyani have stretched their losing streak to four losses in four meetings when they were beaten 22-20, 19-21, 18-21 at the Sultan Abdul Halim Stadium in Alor Setar today.
The loss for Indonesia awarded Japan their second point before they charged on to win 3-0 and claim their spot in the finals tomorrow.
“We were battling to win the point for our country and our personal individual records. We studied their moves and did a lot of analyzing on how to beat. We really wanted to beat them so badly,” said Greysia afterwards.
The pair first met their rivals at the Korea Open (15-21,13-21) in Sept last year. Misaki-Ayaka continued their reign at the 2017 Japan Open (21-15,12-21, 21-15) and the Indonesian Masters (21-17, 21-12) on 28 Jan.
Despite the obvious disappointments, Greysia-Apriyani are still itching to take on their Japanese nemesis again.
“They are definitely a more experienced side But I believe that we have improved from how we fared against them before.
“Main area of improvement would be in handling pressure at crucial moments especially the last few points in a game. That is what we need to work on,” said Apriyani. – BY ALVIN OH
