China Open: Cai Yun – Fu Haifeng digs deep against Yoshiteru Hirobe – Kenta Kazuno in round-of-16
China’s Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, who are currently World Number One, struggled hard to get rid of the spirited pair of Yoshiteru Hirobe and Kenta Kazuno of Japan in the Men’s Doubles round-of-16 in the 2011 China Open Premier Super Series, in Shanghai, China,
on Thursday, November 24.
The top seeds dug deep to shuck out Hirobe and Kazuno, who are currently ranked at number 30 in the Men’s Doubles world rankings. The Japanese shuttlers stretched the top seeds to a rubber set contest and bowed down in 47 minutes after putting up superb
show of attacking badminton in front of a packed indoor arena at Shanghai.
The Japanese duo played to their maximum potential and won the first set. However, the Chinese shuttlers came back strongly to win the second set with a huge margin. In the final game, the Japanese pair played well but the Chinese dominated the rallies in
the end and won the decider.
In the start of the first set, both sides played wonderful game in the opening set. The Chinese shuttlers were leading the game by reaching at 16-21, when the Japanese duo put up tremendous show of aggressive badminton and levelled the score by reaching
at 18-18. Cai and Fu failed to play well in the concluding points and lost the set with a 19-21 score.
In the following set of this superb contest, the top seeds bounced back in the game by playing with as aggressive approach. They continued their domination in the whole game by playing at their best speed and bagged the second set with a 21-11 score on the
board.
In the final game of this thrilling battle was quite interesting until the score reached at 11-11. At this stage, the Chinese pair proved their highest standard skills by accelerating their speed and won the deciding game with a margin of 21-15. The top
seeds finished up the three-set match in 47 minutes with a 19-21, 21-11 and 21-15 score on the board.
In the quarter-final, the top seeds, Cai and Fu will face another Japanese pair, Naoki Kawamae and Shoji Sato.
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