Taufik Hidayat
Taufik Hidayat (born 10 August 1981 in Bandung, West Java) is a retired Indonesian badminton player. He is a former World and Olympic champion in men's singles. He has also won the Indonesian Open six times (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006).
When he was young, he joined the SGS Club, a badminton club in Bandung, where he trained under Iie Sumirat.
Hidayat won the men's singles competition in badminton at the 2004 Summer Olympics. In August 2005, he won the men's singles competition at the IBF World Championships. He also won the gold medal at the Asian Games twice, at Busan in 2002 and Doha in 2006.
Popular media has at times focused on the perceived rivalry between Hidayat and Chinese player Lin Dan, referring to the two as "arch rivals".
In November 2012, Hidayat built a badminton training center named Taufik Hidayat Arena (THA), located at Ciracas, East Jakarta. The Center is owned and named after himself.
He married the daughter of Agum Gumelar, Ami Gumelar, on 4 February 2006. They had a daughter in early August 2008, named Natarina Alika Hidayat. She was born shortly before he had to leave for the World Championships.
Hidayat's shot-making strengths were his backhand (as he is perhaps most famous for his backhand smash, revered for its unusually high generation of power), forehand jump smash, drop shot (reverse slice in particular), smooth footwork and deceiving net play. Hidayat's forehand jump smash in the 2006 World Championships was once the fastest smash recorded in singles competition: he recorded a 305 km/h in a match against Ng Wei.
This power on both his forehand and backhand, combined with his tenacity at the net and scope for deceptive shots, provided him with an extremely diverse weaponry on court, making him one of the most difficult players to face on the open circuit. Criticisms were aimed at his occasional lack of fitness, impatience with loud crowds, and his propensity to return a net shot with another net shot even when his opponent was dangerously close to the net.
For the fourth time, Taufik participated in the Summer Olympics. Taufik competed in badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's singles but he was eliminated in the round of 16 by Lin Dan.
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