Copenhagen Masters 2011: Inthanon Ratchanok ousts Yao Jie to enter into Women’s Singles final
Thailand’s Inthanon Ratchanok has reserved her berth in the Women’s Singles final after registering victory over Nederland’s Yao Jie in the semi-final encounter of the Copenhagen Masters 2011, in Denmark, on Tuesday, December 27.
Ratchanok, who is currently positioned at number 14 in the Women’s Singles world rankings, delivered phenomenal performance against the Dutch opponent and won the battle in an impressive fashion without losing even a single set. She took 37 minutes in the
court to thrash Jie by playing to her maximum potential.
Jie played well in the opening game but failed to maintain her control in the concluding phase and lost the set with a decent difference. In the second game, the Thai lady accelerated her speed and showed no respect to her rival and finished the game with
a comfortable margin.
Right from the start of opening set, both females grabbed attention of the local crowd by playing top quality badminton. They put up superb show of aggressive game and remained toe-to-toe until the score reached at 8-8.
Ratchanok was playing wonderful net shots whereas Jie employed powerful smashes to put pressure on the higher ranked opponent. Until the one-minute interval, Ratchanok was in a slightly better position as she reached at 11-9.
After the break, Jie increased her speed at net and pushed her opponent in both back corners of the court. She levelled the score with her aggressive approach by reaching at 13-13. At this stage, Ratchanok opened up the rallies and employed powerful drives
in all areas of the court.
This strategy worked well for Ratchanok as she remained successful in building pressure on Jie. She stretched her lead and eventually won the set with a margin of 21-17.
In the second game, Jie failed to produce better speed to match the pace of the rallies and remained trailing behind until the break. Ratchanok was leading the game with a remarkable lead of 11-6 in the first half.
After the break, Jie stunned the higher ranked Ratchanok by scoring five consecutive points and levelled the score at 11-11. However, she could not control the pace in rest of the game because her challenger started to play aggressive badminton.
Ratchanok played fast game at net and also executed powerful smashes on the right-hand side of her opponent. The planned game of the Thai lady helped her to end the second game with a comfortable score of 21-15. The final result of this Women’s Singles semi-final
match was 21-17 and 21-15.
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