Korea Open Grand Prix Gold: Lee Hyun Il narrowly beats Wenlong Zhou in Men’s Singles second round
Korea’s Lee Hyun Il, who has won the Men’s Singles title in last week’s Macau Open GP Gold, had to work hard against the China’s young shuttler, Wenlong Zhou in the second round of the 2011 Korean Open Grand Prix Gold, on Thursday, December 8, in Korea.
Lee Hyun, who is currently World Number 15 and the third seed in the event, worked really hard against the passionate Chinese and emerged as the winner in three games. Wenlong played superb badminton in the first game but failed to continue his impressive
run in the following both games and lost the rubber-set match in 60 minutes.
The Korean opened his campaign in a shaky way and remained struggling in the whole game and eventually lost it with a huge margin. However, he played tremendous badminton in the following both games and advanced into the next stage of the home event.
Wenlong started the first game in a confident way as he played remarkable badminton against the higher ranked local opponent. Lee Hyun failed to play aggressive game in the opening set of the game as he made many negative points which helped his opponent
to build a lead. He also failed to utilise his powerful smashes and lost the game with a one-sided margin of 14-21.
Nevertheless, the experienced Korean fought back in the second game of the match when he played composed game and stopped the aggressive run of the Chinese opponent. His impressive defence grew stronger as he effectively returned the smashes of Wenlong.
Lee Hyun was relying on his fast and perfect drives and kept his opponent moving around in the court. He took the second set by playing impressive game and won it with an impressive score of 21-13.
In the final game, both players employed their elite skills to set up a comfortable gap but the score remained close until the opening half of the game. However, after the interval, Lee Hyun started to play tight net strokes followed by deceptive smashes.
The planned game of the Korean helped him to take the final set with a reasonable margin of 21-16. The end result of this exciting contest was 14-21, 21-13 and 21-16.
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