Waiting for Liliyana’s Successors

KOMPAS/RONY ARIYANTO NUGROHO

Indonesia’s mixed doubles player Liliyana “Butet” Natsir, who played with Tontowi “Owi” Ahmad, bids farewell to the audience ahead of the Daihatsu Indonesia Masters 2019 tournament at the Gelora Bung Karno (GBK) Stadium in Jakarta on Sunday (27/1/2019). Butet ended her career in badminton after making various achievements for Indonesian badminton.

Liliyana Natsir’s retirement forces Indonesia to immediately prepare new mixed doubles shuttlers. Throughout her 14-year career, Liliyana was deeply respected by her opponents.

This is a big question for us: “After Liliyana, who’s next?” It is a very good question because Butet, as Liliyana is popularly known, was such an important figure in Indonesian badminton, especially in mixed doubles.

Butet was first paired with Nova Widianto. Together with Nova, Butet clinched two world championship titles and won silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. With her next partner Tontowi “Owi” Ahmad, Butet won two more championship titles and then gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Indonesian badminton fans will never forget the moment when Owi and Butet won in mixed doubles in the 2012 All England, ending a 33-year drought. Previously, Christian Hadinata and Imelda Wiguna also won the title.

Butet had gone through much struggle on her journey to the top. Many, including Indonesian mixed doubles coach Richard Mainaky, acknowledged that Butet was among the athletes who realized the importance of maintaining and improving her own performance. Unsurprisingly, in many occasions, Butet was known for increasing her own training hours.

This was why Owi and Butet’s achievements and ranking are far beyond other Indonesian mixed doubles shuttlers. In the Badminton World Federation’s (BWF) most recent ranking, Owi and Butet sit at No. 4. Hafiz Faizal and Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja are at No. 14, while Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti are at No. 15.

The journey into the world’s Top 10 is not easy. Above Hafiz and Gloria, there are a number of tough mixed doubles pairs from Denmark, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the UK, Thailand, Japan and China. Chinese shuttling pairs dominated the list of top mixed doubles players, including Zheng Siwei-Huang Yaqiong at No. 1.

Indonesian shuttlers in all categories should follow Butet’s footsteps. A certain unquenchable thirst is necessary to have been consistently at the world’s elite level since 2004. Above the super series premier, there is still the world championship. Beyond that, there are the Asian Games and the Olympics. And so on and so forth.

We need to continuously and quickly train new shuttlers as other countries are moving so fast. Spain, which does not have a badminton culture, now has Carolina Marin, who is the world’s No. 6 in women’s singles. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s highest-ranking player is Gregoria Mariska at No. 15.

A more evenly-distributed strength is necessary as Indonesia has depended exclusively on men’s doubles and mixed doubles for too long. We need to create new stars in men’s singles, women’s singles and women’s doubles, other than in mixed doubles. The end goal, surely, is to bring “Red and White” flags to the top of the world.