Bitburger Open Grand Prix Gold: Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif ends winning run of Lukas Schmidt
Malaysia’s in-form player Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif extended his winning run on court and surged into Men’s Singles quarter-final after ending up the impressive run of his local opponent Lukas Schmidt in round-of-16 contest at Bitburger Open GP Gold on Thursday,
November 1, in Germany.
The sixth seeded Malaysian shuttler, who has been putting up superb show of top class badminton for the last few months, showed a wonderful confidence and easily toppled his German rival by taking just 30 minutes.
Malaysian player did not face any considerable opposition from his local opponent and remained on track all the way to finish up the match in straight games with a crushing difference on the board.
Despite having the support of local fans, the un-seeded Schmidt failed to tackle the tricky play of his Malaysian opponent and easily crashed out at the pre-quarter-final stage without showing any considerable performance in the arena.
Right from the starting points of opening set, the lofty Arif delivered extremely well as he kept the pace of rallies quite high and remained on the driving seat at the early stage.
The impressive precision coupled with attacking play of Arif made his rival uncomfortable throughout the opening half and earned the Malaysian a wonderful lead until the break.
After the one-minute break, the higher ranked Malaysian did not show any respect to his aggressive German rival by playing in the similar aggressive fashion and remained successful in taking the opening game with a stunning total of 21-13.
In the second set, the impressive Arif did not lose his focus and maintained his upper hand on his opponent by keeping the pace of rallies at the best level.
Arif’s cracking smashes and impressive play at net helped him to create a decent gap until the one-minute interval.
After taking rest for one minute, the sixth seeded Arif continued putting up solid show of flawless badminton and remained successful in bagging the set with a superb 21-16 margin on score board.
The in-form Arif managed to win this pre-quarter-final clash in 30 minutes with a tremendous difference of 21-13 and 21-16.
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