Lin Dan tames Kestutis Navickas in Men’s Singles opening round of the 2011 World Championships
China’s top seed, Lin Dan proved his domination in the game as he tamed Kestutis Navickas of Lithuania in the Men’s Singles opening round of the 2011 World Championships on August 9, at the Wembley Hall in London.
Lin is currently World Number Two in the international rankings and the second seed in the Men’s Singles category of the event. He opened his campaign against the Lithuanian in style, who also played a powerful and attacking game. However, Lin is known for
his extraordinary speed and stamina which gave him the extra advantage over other shuttlers and his same tactics worked well against Kestutis.
The Chinese clinched the match by working well for two sets and took only 32 minutes in the court to chuck out his opponent and make his entry into the second round of the World Championships.
The Chinese opened the game in a slow but controlled manner, as he was also cautious of his ankle injury which forced him to stay away from training for one week before the world meet. However, the three-time world champion and ruling Olympic gold medallist
found his momentum and finished-off the opening game with a stunning score of 21-11 in 17 minutes.
The second set was interesting in the start where both shuttlers remained tied until the score reached 5-5, where the higher ranked Chinese started to control the rallies by putting more speed into his strokes.
Kestutis played aggressive badminton by hitting the bird hard from the base line of the court but his challenger was quite strong in his defensive strokes. Until the interval, the Chinese reached at the comfortable stage of 11-7.
After the break, Lin injected more speed into his strokes and started to play his usual game as he seemed to feel comfortable in his movement. He showed no mercy in this half of the game and won it with a striking margin of 21-10. This straight-set fight
ended with the victory of Lin, who finished-off the fight with the score of 21-11 and 21-10.
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