JAKARTA – Indonesia automatically has one men’s doubles representative in the final round of the 2026 Polytron Indonesia Open after Raymond Indra/Nikolaus Joaquin and Sabar Karyaman Gutama/Mohammad Reza Pahlevi Isfahani won their opponents.
Raymond/Nikolaus were the first to secure a semifinal ticket after successfully making a second surprise at the tournament by defeating Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi in three games 16-21, 24-22, and 21-18 at Istora, on Friday, June 5, 2026, afternoon WIB.
“Of course today’s match is not easy. Maybe there is a lot of hesitation because it’s the first time meeting them. The field situation today with yesterday’s field is also different,” said Raymond after the match.
This is the second victory for Raymond/Nikolaus over the seeded pair in this tournament. They previously stopped the second seeded Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik (Malaysia) in the second round to reach the quarterfinals.
Hoki/Kobayashi is a pair that holds the eighth seed status in this BWF Super 1000-level event. The pair also has one world championship title, which was won in the 2021 edition in Huelva, Spain.
“Today is really amazing. In the last game the match was really exciting. The audience was also very crowded today. I really didn’t expect to be able to turn things around even though our position was constantly under pressure in the last game,” said Joaquin.
After losing the first game, Raymond/Joaquin immediately led 12-7 in the second game. However, the situation was tense when Hoki/Kobayashi tied the score to 18-18 and got two match points after that.
However, Raymond/Joaquin who played aggressively continued to launch attack after attack to penetrate the opponent’s defense. Their efforts were successful so that the match had to be decided in the third game.
Raymond/Joaquin was able to turn the tide after being left far behind in the third game. On the other hand, Hoki/Kobayashi’s focus also began to be disturbed so that he made several mistakes himself. The situation was also taken advantage of by the host representative.
Meanwhile, Sabar/Reza, the sixth seed, then followed to the semifinals after stopping Chen Bo Yang/Liu from China two games 21-15 and 21-15 in the afternoon match. Chen/Liu is the pair that stopped Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Shohibul Fikri in the first round.
The meeting between Raymond/Nikolaus and Sabar/Reza in the semifinals automatically ensured Indonesia had one ticket to the final. Sabar/Reza last year managed to reach the final in this event, but lost to the pair of Kim Won-ho/Seo Seung-jae (South Korea).
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language.
(system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
