TOKYO: World No. 1 Indonesian men's doubles pair of Marcus Gideon and Kevin Sukamuljo crashed out of Tokyo 2020 Olympics after suffering a shock defeat in the quarter-final against the Malaysian shuttlers Aaron Chia and Wooi Yik Soh here at Musashino Forest Plaza -- Court 2 on Thursday. The duo overcame the challenge of the Indonesian team in 33 minutes and won 21-14, 21-17.
The Minions' never gained any momentum from the start of the match as Chia-Soh took control and dominated them for over 13 minutes in a 21-14 set win. The Marcus-Kevin defence, normally impregnable, was torn to shreds as Chia and Soh rained smashes on them in the second set too.
"I really can't believe we won, especially at the Olympics. We've never beaten them. This is the best match of my career," BWF quoted Soh as a saying. "Our on-court communication gave us a lot of confidence. We discussed every point, the mental side of things was very clear to play every shot."
"Nobody expected this but we are quite satisfied with our performance. We will play with the same spirit in the next round. We tried to nullity their strong points and focused more on our attacking game. And we were confident," added his partner.
Gideon acknowledged the occasion had got to them. "I think today we were under pressure from the beginning of the match. We will have to evaluate. We were just not feeling good. They played with nothing to lose, they played well today. They kept attacking us. We underperformed today. We had a lot of pressure at an event like this, that's why we just couldn't play well."