China Open Premier Super Series: Chen Long ends winning run of Simon Santoso in semi-final battle
Chen Long, the most in-form shuttler of China at the moment, has proved his superiority in the game as he has ended the winning run of Indonesia’s Simon Santoso by beating him in the Men’s Singles semi-final of the 2011 China Open Premier Super Series, on
Saturday, November 26, at the indoor arena in Shanghai, China.
The second seed in the event, Long continues his impressive winning streak at international arena. He has been playing remarkable badminton for the last couple of months and has defeated the top shuttlers in the world of badminton in Super Series and Premier
Super Series events. He has got another chance to win Men’s Singles title as he has reached in the final of China Open.
In his semi-final contest against Santoso, the Chinese remained composed and played with aggression which earned him victory in two sets without facing much trouble from his rival. Santoso, who has recently won the title in the South East Asian (SEA) Games,
failed to play well against the Chinese, who was having the support of huge home fans.
Long opened his campaign in the semi-final match in a passionate way as he employed powerful straight and cross-court smashes to put pressure on his Indonesian Opponent. However, Santoso also played wonderful game levelled the score at 8-8. Until the break,
the Indonesian was moving ahead at 11-9.
After the interval, Long changed his tactics and started to play with more speed. He started to take the bird early at the net and put his opponent under pressure. The aggressive run on Long disturbed the flow of Santoso in the whole game. Long destroyed
the defence of the Indonesian and won the set with a 21-14 score.
In the second game, Long never let his challenger to level the score even for a single point. He was playing on a completely different level this time as he made no mistake in setting up a wonderful lead. His positive approach and aggressive play spared
no chance for Santoso to dominate the pace of rallies.
The Chinese finished up the second game with a similar score of 21-14. The final result of this 44 minute straight-set match was 21-14 and 21-14.
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