2012 China Masters: An early exit for Xiaolong Liu, Zihan Qiu in Men’s Doubles event
It was a disappointing outing for Men’s Doubles experts Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu in the Li Ning China Masters as they had to bid farewell to the event in the quarter-final round on September 13, 2012.
They dazzled in front of an unseeded couple Biao Chai-Nan Zhang in the second round of this Super Series.
This pre quarter-final match prolonged to 40 minutes and ended with a tight yet decisive result of 21-11 and 21-17.
The local badminton arena of Changzhou was filled to its brim as a huge crowd assembled to encourage both Chinese teams in this crucial encounter.
Biao Chai and Nan Zhang performed beyond expectations and stunned their higher ranked rivals with an unbeatable strategy.
On the other hand, the third seeded duo disappointed its supporters by putting a below par performance which ultimately resulted in their woeful exit from the home event.
The twosome of Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu, who holds the 15th spot in World Rankings, looked confused straight away from the beginning of the first set as they failed to read their rivals’ game and remained at the lower end.
In the first half of the set, they slipped in a few valuable points from their hands and then a couple of mistakes after 5-7 doubled the trouble for them.
Biao Chai and Nan Zhang relished full benefits of this opportunity and mounted pressure by placing a respectable total of 11 at half time.
They did not lose touch in latter part of the game and swept the table with a convincing margin of 21-11.
This loss broke the back-bone of Xiaolong Liu and Zihan Qiu and they could not rise on their toes in the following game.
Things started becoming worse when they got down in four consecutive rallies and then allowed their challengers to gain a decent advantage.
Though, they showed some class in middle of the game but that short campaign could not make any impact and they kept trailing behind the opposing team.
Biao Chai and Nan Zhang added five successive points in their total and cruised to victory with an overwhelming score of 21-17.
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