Just before the WC in KL, when I posted that Sony would shine as he did 5 years' ago when he defeated his teammate, Taufik Hidayat, at the ABC, many were sceptical: "Sony beat Taufik 5 years ago While everybody is speculating that TH, LD, LCW, BCL will be the likely contenders for the forthcoming WC men's singles crown in KL, don't write off Sony Dwi Kuncoro, who demolished compatriot TH 15-12, 15-5, almost 5 years ago at the Asian Badminton Championships in Bangkok's Nimibutr Gymnasium for his first major title and US$11,000 prize money. During that tournament Malaysia's Hafiz Hashim and LCW crashed out in the QF and R3 respectively. Unfortunately LD and BCL did not compete. Another surprise was when Zhou Mi outlasted Zhang Ning 6-11, 11-3, 11-8 for the WS title. So will upsets continue in the WC 2007? It will be interesting and I will not want to miss the action in KL! Last edited by Loh : 08-10-2007 at 07:12 PM. " We got the answer. Sony did not disappoint. He beat three of the best in the business who are ranked higher than him to become second best in the world. Also there were major upsets for WS and MD. A young and pretty lady, Zhu Lin, knocked off the old guards to become World Champion! Very few gave much chance to the Indonesian men's doubles pair as they were not performing well during the earlier SS tournaments, but Kido and Setiawan surprised them all to become the most unexpected Champions. The following results tell the story: WC FINALS Sunday, August 19, 2007 1. XD Nova WIDIANTO/ Lilyana NATSIR [2] [INA] Bt [CHN] Bo ZHENG/ Ling GAO [1] 21-16, 21-14 (0:38m) 2. WS Lin ZHU [5] [CHN] Bt [HKG] Chen WANG [6] 21-8, 21-12 (0:35m) 3. MS Dan LIN [1] [CHN] Bt [INA] Sony DWI KUNCORO [9] 21-11, 22-20 (0:50m) 4. WD Wei YANG / Jiewen ZHANG [3][CHN] Bt [CHN] Ling GAO / Sui HUANG [2] 21-16, 21-19 (0:41m) 5. MD Markis KIDO/ Hendra SETIAWAN [3] [INA] Bt [KOR] Jae Sung JUNG / Yong Dae LEE [13] 21-19, 21-19 0:33 But for Sony, who has been playing second fiddle to TH all these years, he has now done better when TH lost his crown after being disposed of in three games in R2 by Anup Sridhar of India, himself an up-coming star. Now Sony is ranked just ahead of TH. and more is expected of him going forward. It is nice to know that the very polite and gentlemanly Sony Kuncoro has won the respect of both friends and foes. Despite what others may say, his former coach Joko, also a gentleman on court, must have instilled some of his virtues on Sony and provided him with the discipline and grounding for his present coach, Hendrawan, to mould him further to be a world champion. Kudos to Sony! Some pictures on Sony taken from various sources including from BC member Shabok, who is a fantastic photographer:
Sony has a girlfriend now, he said she becomes his inspiration ,she has motivated and encouraged him to be a good badminton player. he also said because of her, he could play well in wc 2007
i hope he could bring back the time when they (LD, sony, LCW, BCL) were juniors... they are, i think, one of the best batches to have come out of the junior stages... if only sony didn't have those injuries...
We'll see.. ..how this 'arek Suroboyo' (fella from Surabaya) will do in the upcoming tourneys the rest of the yr..Hope with the new "pressure", of achieving a wonderful result this past WC, Sony will take on the new challenge & expectation to keep on improving..The whole world is watching now and it's up to him to deliver!
