Macau Open Grand Prix Gold: Lee Hyun Il crushes Muhammad Hafiz Hashim to land podium berth
The Korean Veteran, Lee Hyun Il proves that he has still some competitive badminton left in him as he has landed a podium berth after crushing Malaysia’s Muhammad Hafiz Hashim in the Men’s Singles semi-final of the 2011 Macau Open Grand Prix Gold, in Macau,
on Saturday, December 3.
The World Number 15 and sixth seed in the tournament, Lee Hyun, played tremendous badminton in all matches in the tournament. In the semi-final showdown, the Korean showed no respect to the experienced Malaysian and bagged the match in straight sets by putting
up superb show of top class badminton. He took 30 minutes to beat Hafiz Hashim and has secured a place in the final.
In the opening set of the match, both shuttlers played well but the Korean was impressive in the concluding phase and took the set with a good score. In the second game, the Korean was miles ahead as he spared no room to crush the Malaysian without any trouble.
Lee Hyun started the opening set in a composed way as he played complete game. Throughout the first half of the set, he remained ahead of Malaysian by playing with precision. Hafiz Hashim tried to level the score by playing with aggression but failed to
break the defence of his higher ranked Korean opponent. Lee Hyun continued playing good badminton and reached at 11-8 until the break.
In the second half of the first game, Lee Hyun injected more power in his shots to maintain his pressure. He continued his wonderful play and emerged as the winner in the opening set of the match by a comfortable margin of 21-16.
In the second game, Hafiz Hashim played with power and speed but his opponent was in complete control of the game. The Malaysian was just one point behind his opponent at 8-9 when the Korean lifted up his level of play and started to extend his lead.
The Korean manipulated all loop poles of Hafiz Hashim and won the set with a fabulous margin of 21-11. The end result of this 30-minute semi-final showdown was 21-16 and 21-11.
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