Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying’s hopes of handing Malaysia its first ever Olympic gold medal were destroyed on Wednesday as they were outclassed by Indonesian pair Tontowi-Liliyana in the final.
Despite silencing critics en route to unexpectedly making the final, Peng Soon-Liu Ying fell short of what was needed to trump the obvious favourites in Tontowi and Liliyana.
The Malaysian pair looked nervous from the get go, making several crucial unforced errors that handed Indonesia an early advantage – they had a 13-7 lead at one point of the game. But despite Peng Soon-Liu Ying’s best efforts to mount a comeback, Tontowi and Liliyana eventually kept their momentum going to clinch an easy 21-14 win in the first set.
The second set was a lot tighter in the beginning, as Peng Soon-Liu Ying began to slowly assert themselves. That said, the glaring gulf in quality between both pair became a lot more prevalent as the game went on, as Tontowi-Liliyana began clinching points from tight rallies, by virtue of being more experienced in handling pressure.
But right after the set interval, Tontowi-Liliyana upped their tempo and opened a 17-11 lead to visibly put more pressure on the Malaysian pair. Once that lead had been opened, the Tontowi-Liliyana made no mistakes by eventually winning the set 21-12 to clinch a historic gold medal for Indonesia.
More to come..
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