Macau Open GP Gold: Taufik Hidayat narrowly wins against Chen Yuekun in Men’s Singles round-of-16
Indonesia’s famous shuttler, Taufik Hidayat had to dig deep into his arsenal to get rid of China’s Chen Yuekun in the Men’s Singles round-of-16 in the Macau Open GP Gold, on Thursday, December 1, in Macau.
The 30-year-old Taufik, who is currently ranked at the 9th position in the Men’s Singles world rankings, passed a severe test put by young Chinese shuttler. The Indonesian worked really hard to chuck out the Chinese in a thrilling rubber-set fight
that ended up in 64 minutes. Yuekun played with confidence and stretched the higher ranked opponent to three games.
Taufik faced no trouble from his opponent in the opening set of the match and won it with a super b margin. However, Yuekun played with wonderful aggression and remained successful in taking the second game with a tight margin. In the final game, Taufik
employed his experienced and played with variation to bag the game with a decent score.
In the start of the opening set, Taufik remained calm and composed and played with precision. His wonderful drives left no room for the spirited Chinese to place his strokes. The Indonesian pushed his opponent in all corners of the court throughout the set
by dictating the pace of the game. He won the first set with a one-sided score of 21-11.
In the following set, the Chinese lifted up his level of play by increasing his speed in all corners of the court. He started to match the speed and accuracy of his higher ranked Indonesian. Taufik tried to tackle the aggression of his opponent but failed
to dominate the rallies in this game and lost it with a tight score of 20-22.
In the final set, the Indonesian played a composed game in the opening half and remained ahead of his opponent by setting up a reasonable margin. The Chinese remained close but failed to dominate the rallies in the concluding phase of the set. Taufik played
well in the ending points and took the final game with a 21-16 score on the board. The overall result of this match was 21-11, 20-22 and 21-16.
In the quarter-final showdown, Taufik will on Korea’s Lee Hyun Il, who defeated Chinese Taipei’s Hsuan Yi Hsueh in the pre-quarter-final showdown.
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