Lukas Schmidt secures pre quarter-final berth in 2012 Bitburger Badminton Open Grand Prix Gold
Men’s Singles shuttler Lukas Schmidt continued his successful run in Bitburger Badminton Open Grand Prix Gold and unseated Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin en route to pre quarter-finals on October 31, 2012.
This second round match was staged at local badminton complex of Saarbrucken, Germany and both contenders kept the audience intact for 46 minutes.
The native shuttler relished full benefits of home ground and crowd as he ended this nerve racking tussle with a favourable result of 16-21, 21-11 and 21-16.
Now Lukas Schmidt’s next challenge will be to surpass the sixth seeded Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif to ensure his presence in the quarter-finals of this Grand Prix Gold event.
He will employ all of his confidence which he has earned through an unbeatable run in the preliminary rounds.
The German campaigner has elevated his chances by sealing a splendid win in the second round. He showed commendable fighting skills and locked the honour despite slipping in the opening game.
In first set, Lukas was bit sluggish as he could not move swiftly across the court and dropped many valuable points.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian shuttler capitalised this situation and established a decent lead with a respectable score position of 11.
Iskandar, who was an unseeded player in this tournament, played with authoritative approach and mounted pressure with 15-9 margin.
He did not lose his grip and bagged first match point with a significant difference in decisive figure of 21-16.
However, he could not go with same flow in the following game and lost this crucial set with a ten-point deficit.
This time the German player launched a brisk attack and pocketed five points in a row. He made the best out of this early advantage and placed an indomitable margin of 11 before the interval.
After the mid-game break, Lukas got into a commanding position with 18-9 and won this segment of the battle with 21-11 score on the board.
The decider remained interesting until 13-13 as both contenders did not allow each other to make a notable difference.
However, Lukas showed elevated craft in the final stage and sent his rival packing with a staggering knock of 21-16.
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