10 Remarkable Facts about Liliyana Natsir

Natsir at the 2013 French open Mixed’s doubles quarterfinal- Author; Pierre-Yves Beaudouin- Wikimedia

10 Remarkable Facts about Liliyana Natsir

Born on 9th September 1985, Liliyana Natsir is a former Indonesian badminton player who specialized in doubles.

Doubles in badminton mean having two players on each side playing against each other. Either of them can hit the shuttle when playing. You don’t have to wait for turns.

With one gold and silver from the Olympic Games, and four gold medals at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships, Natsir is considered an all-time badminton player who has for sure made Indonesia proud.

1. Liliyana brought pride to Indonesia

Natsir with other medalists posing with Indonesia president- Author; Unknown- Wikimedia

When Liliyana was born, Indonesia had just returned home from their 4th World Championships without having won any medals.

The year before she picked up a racket herself, Indonesia had won 6 medals at the 8th World Championships in Birmingham.

When she was only 17 years old, she returned home to Indonesia with 3 medals from the World Junior Championships in South Africa.

Just three years later, she won her first World Championship title as a senior. This was just a couple of weeks before her 20th birthday.

2. She has never returned from a world championship without a medal

Medals- Photo by Tbel Abuseridze on Unsplash

Liliyana has been able to claim a historic seven medals in just as many World Championships.

Impressively, she has never returned home from the World Championships without a medal. That is a record that everyone acknowledges will be very hard to beat.

The gold medal from 2005 got a similar partner in the trophy cabinet when Liliyana Natsir and Nova Widianto claimed the title again in 2007. In 2009 the two were in their third consecutive World Championship final but this time they had to settle with silver medals.

Together with her current mixed double partner, Tontowi Ahmad, Liliyana Natsir settled for bronze in 2011 before she got her third gold medal in 2013, another bronze in 2015 and finally her fourth World Championship gold medal in 2017.

3. She is one of the few Indonesian women gold medalists

Lilyana Natsir- Author; Nardisoero- Wikimedia

For a long time, Natsir was the second Indonesian woman Olympic gold medalist, after Susi Susanti who was a star in 1992.

Later, she was succeeded by Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu in 2021.

4. Natsir has quite an impressive achievement in sportsmanship

Natsir playing- Author; Pierre-Yves Beaudouin- Wikimedia

Among Liliyana’s achievements are her three back-to-back titles from the years 2012–2014 at the ‘All England Badminton Championships.’

In 2016, she and Tontowi Ahmad became the first Indonesian mixed doubles pair to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games after defeating Chan Peng Soon and Goh Liu Ying of Malaysia.

So far, as of 2022, she holds the highest number of BWF World Championship titles for mixed doubles.

5. Her dream to be a badminton athlete began in childhood

Kids run organised by Sporlab in Ankara/Turkey, 2015- Photo by sporlab on Unsplash

Natsir dreamed of being a badminton athlete since childhood. She started playing badminton as early as age nine at her local badminton club in Manado.

Three years later, she decided to move to Jakarta and entered her youth club, Tangkas Alfamart.

She then joined the national badminton team of Indonesia in 2002 together with Natalia Poluakan, who was her longtime friend from Manado.

When she and Poluakan won the women’s doubles title in Pekan Olahraga Nasional (National Games), she was noticed by a guy called Richard Mainaky who then invited her to play in mixed doubles with Nova Widianto.

Nova is a former Indonesian badminton player who is currently the Indonesia national team mixed doubles head coach. 

6. Natsir teamed up with Nova later and even won the Asian championships

Nova Widianto & Lilyana Natsir- Author; Nardisoero- Wikimedia

In 2004, Liliyana teamed up with coach Richard Mainaky and mixed doubles partner Nova Widianto. Nova once described her, “She’s tough. She has naturally difficult and deceptive strokes.”

This duo soon became the country’s top players. They won on their debut at the 2004 China Open against Olympic champions Zhang Jun and Gao Ling, then again at the Singapore Open a few weeks later.

They reached the world’s top rank in 2006, securing their title by winning a number of superseries. That is the Asian Championships in mixed doubles and four World Grand Prix titles. This was then followed by a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

They won the BWF World Championships in both the years 2005 and 2007. In 2009, they became the runners-up in these championships.

7. Liliyana began playing women’s doubles in 2007

Lilyana Natsir- Author; Pierre-Yves Beaudouin- Wikimedia

While Natsir had previously focused on mixed doubles with partner Nova Widianto,  she began playing women’s doubles with Vita Marissa in 2007.

In the year 2007, during the Southeast Asian Games in Thailand, Natsir and Marissa won the gold medal in women’s doubles hence defeating their Indonesian teammates Jo Novita and Greysia Polii in straight sets.

They also helped the Indonesian women’s team win the team gold medal at the games.

8. Her rank is quite impressive in Indonesia

Lilyana Natsir- Author;Pierre-Yves Beaudouin- Wikimedia

Among the badminton players born in Indonesia, Liliyana Natsir ranks number 14. 

Before her are Mia Audina (1979), Greysia Polii (1987), Tony Gunawan (1975), Mohammad Ahsan (1987), Candra Wijaya (1975), and Ardy Wiranata (1970).

After her are Sony Dwi Kuncoro (1984), Apriyani Rahayu (1998), Nova Widianto (1977), Maria Kristin Yulianti (1985), Tontowi Ahmad (1987), and Anthony Sinisuka Ginting (1996).

9. Natsir has had the most page views in Indonesian Wikipedia Edition.

Screenshot of the latest version of the Indonesian Wikipedia’s main page- Source; Indonesian Wikipedia’s main page- Wikimedia

Over the past year, Liliyana Natsir has had the most page views in the Indonesian Wikipedia edition with 80,402 views. This is followed by English at 63,519 views and Chinese at 9,071 views.

In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 Wikipedia editions are Minangkabau at 618.87%, Indonesian at 85.04% and English at 75.35%.

10. She is known for being serious while on court

Tontowi Ahmad and Liliyana Natsir on court- Author; Pierre-Yves Beaudouin- Wikimedia

Liliyana is known for being the serious one on the court. Her partner in court for a long time, Tontowi Ahmad, admits that Liliyana is a ‘galak.’ Meaning a stern partner.

However as he further made his statement, Ahmad acknowledges the fact that her sternness is his motivation and is always positive for him when playing and playing teamwork.