BWF World Championships 2022: “Daddies” repel familiar foes in semis
The “Daddies” of Indonesia are in the final of the BWF World Championships once more.
Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan defeated fellow Indonesians Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Rian Ardianto, 23-21, 12-21, 21-16, in the semis. The third seeds are aiming for their fourth men’s doubles World Championship together.
Alfian and Ardianto put up a gallant stand, even leading the first game, 15-7. This is before Ahsan and Setiawan caught up and prevented the former from taking the game despite trailing, 18-20.
The fifth-ranked duo of Alfian and Ardianto managed to grab the next game with relative ease. However, Ahsan and Setiawan took over to reign supreme in the match.
The “Daddies” has won three of their five contests against their compatriots, including this one.
In the other men’s doubles matchup, Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik fended off a pair of recent Thomas Cup champions, India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, 20-22, 21-18, 21-16.
Chia and Soh forced a deciding game after conceding the first one. Neither side broke through in the final game until the team from Malaysia broke through with three straight points, 19-15.
This will be the first time Chia and Soh would be playing at this stage of the tournament. Rankireddy and Shetty have never beaten the former in all their meetings to date.
Over in women’s doubles, Matsumoto Mayu and Nagahara Wakana could not contain reigning champions Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, 13-21, 14-21.
Despite the final score, the home team did not make it easy for the Chinese pair, as the match took 52 minutes to conclude.
Chen and Jia will be gunning for their third World Championship title.
Meanwhile, Kim So-yeong and Kong Hee-yong emerged from the other half of the bracket, winning against Puttita Supajirakul and Sapsiree Taerattanachai, 21-16, 19-21, 25-23.
The Thais were ahead for majority of the third game, and it was not until 23-22 when Kim and Kong tasted the lead for the first time.
The match took more than an hour and 30 minutes to finish.
Author Details
JP is an all-around sportswriter who covered the Bingo Bonanza Philippine Gold Grand Prix 2009. Aside from BWF badminton he follows football, basketball, and pro wrestling.
