China Masters 2012: Ratchanok Intanon overpowers Nozomi Okuhara in Women’s Singles round-of-16
Thailand top player Ratchanok Intanon showed her elevated craft and reserved her berth in Women’s Singles quarter-final after ending up the winning run of Japan’s Nozomi Okuhara in round-of-16 at Li Ning China Masters 2012 on Thursday, September 13, in China.
The World Number 10 Ratchanok, who is fifth seeded player in Women’s Singles main draw at China Masters, showed a remarkable performance and managed to thrash Nozomi in a crushing fashion without any trouble.
Ratchanok was in complete control of rallies as she remained on driving seat all the way in the pre-quarter-final battle and overpowered her lower ranked Japanese rival in straight games in 40 minutes.
On the contrary, the un-seeded Nozomi tried to give a good fight in opening set of the match but she could not dictate the pace of rallies at the crucial stages and finally lost the battle without showing her brilliance on court.
The opening set of this match was absolutely fantastic when both shuttlers pulled the attention of local crowd by playing positive and composed badminton and remained close at starting rallies.
Ratchanok tried her best to put up strong show but she failed to build up a reasonable lead and remained struggling until the break.
After the mid-game interval, the higher ranked Ratchanok remained positive and she started to play with variations which helped her to play well at the ending points and she took the game with a reasonable 21-17 score on the board.
In the following set, Nozomi played good badminton in starting rallies but failed to stop her rival from taking over the charge of rallies.
In the meanwhile, Ratchanok played safe and positive badminton in opening half and took a superb lead until the break.
After the one-minute interval, Ratchanok continued showing up her tremendous craft on court. She did not let her Japanese rival to narrow the score and eventually took the second game with a convincing margin of 21-15.
The in-form Ratchanok stamped her supremacy in the arena by crushing Nozomi in the round-of-16 clash in 40 minutes with a 21-17 and 21-15 score on the board.
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