Crafty Taufik Hidayat advances into Men’s Singles quarter-final at Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2012
Indonesia’s legendary player Taufik Hidayat showed his impressive craft and reached into Men’s Singles quarter-final after beating China’s Du Pengyu in the round-of-16 at Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2012 on Thursday, March 15, in Switzerland.
The World Number 12 Taufik, who is desperately looking to find a good flow, displayed crafty show by employing his experience and overpowered the eighth seed Pengyu, who is positioned at number 10 in Men’s Singles world rankings.
The higher ranked Chinese played with precision in the opening game but failed to overpower his challenger in the ending phase of the contest and lost it with a decent score on the board.
Taufik was as calm as ever in the court as he showed no sign of urgency and remained focused to bag the battle in straight games by taking 44 minutes.
In the first set, Taufik played with precision and dominated the pace of rallies against his Chinese rival.
However, Pengyu also accelerated his speed to tackle the aggression of his opponent and managed to remain equal at the early stage in the opening half.
Taufik played positive game in the first half and managed a comfortable 11-7 lead until the one-minute break.
After the interval, Pengyu started to keep the bird low by executing flat strokes and remained in wonderful control of rallies. He ended the lead of his Indonesian opponent by reaching 11-11.
Both men progressed equally in the concluding phase of first game and reached at 15-15 when Taufik showed his brilliance and played attacking badminton to take the set with a decent margin of 21-18.
In the second set, Taufik continued his upper hand as he played composed and positive badminton. He did not commit unforced errors and moved his opponent in all areas of the court.
Until the one-minute break, the Indonesian established a striking lead of 11-5 on the score board.
After the break, Taufik did not drop his speed at any stage and also wasted no time in ending it with a tremendous 21-15 score on the board.
The Indonesian won this straight-set encounter in 44 minutes with a 21-18 and 21-15 score on the board.
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