Jonatan Christie

Jonatan Christie is an Indonesian badminton player born on 15th September 1997. He hails from Jakarta in Indonesia. Jonatan has been representing Indonesia internationally since 2013. As of March 2021, he is ranked 7th in the BWF men’s singles rankings.

Background:

Jonatan Christie was born to Andreas Adi Siswa and Marlanti Djaja. His father, Andreas, is a former national football player.

Jonatan picked up an interest in badminton while studying in elementary school as part of the extracurricular activities that also included basketball, football, and taekwondo. It was his father who guided him to choose badminton over three other sports as he had fear of getting his skin darker by playing outdoor sports. He participated in a school-level badminton competition, where he showed his sporting talent.

Jonatan Christie looks upto Taufik Hidayat and Lin Dan as his inspiration.

Rise to Glory:

Jonatan Christie triumphed his first senior international title at the age of 15 by defeating his compatriot Alamsyah Yunus at the Indonesia International.

In 2015, Jonatan became the National Champion at the Indonesian National Badminton Championships. He was part of the national men’s team that won three consecutive Gold medals (2016, 2018, and 2020) at the Asian Team Championships.

At the Southeast Asian Games, Jonatan was among the Indonesian men’s team that won three Gold medals (2015, 2017, and 2019) in Men’s Team and also has a Gold medal (2017) in Singles. He and his national mixed team had won two Bronze medals (2015 and 2019) at the Sudirman Cup.

Major Achievements:

Jonatan Christie's first major international achievement came in 2013 when he won the Silver medal in the Mixed Team event at the World Junior Championships.

In 2017, Jonatan reached the first and only Superseries final at the Korea Open, where he was defeated by his compatriot Anthony Sinisuka Ginting. That year, he played his first Grand Prix Gold final at the India Open and lost to tournament favorite B. Sai Praneeth.

In 2018, Jonatan won the Gold medal and Silver medal in the Singles and Men’s Team respectively at the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia. The very year, he reached his first World Tour final at the New Zealand Open, where he lost to China’s Lin Dan. A year later, he bagged two World Tour titles at the New Zealand Open and Australian Open. Jonatan was part of the men’s national team that won the Silver medal (2016) and Bronze (2018) at the Thomas Cup.

Jonatan Christie qualified for his debut Olympics at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and is seeded No.7 in the Men’s Singles.