Maria Febe struggles against Tanvi Lad in opening round of 2012 Vietnam Open GP – Badminton News
Women’s Singles expert Maria Febe Kusumastuti looked a bit off colour in her opening match of Yonex Sunrise Vietnam Open GP as she had to put an extra effort to overpower lower ranked Tanvi Lad on August 22, 2012.
The Indonesian campaigner took 55 minutes on court to register winning figures of 20-22, 21-15 and 21-9.
She came back from a horrendous start and bagged the ending two match points to claim a spot in the pre quarter-finals of this Grand Prix event.
On the other hand, the young Indian shuttler stunned her higher ranked opponent in the opening game but she lacked good finishing skills and crashed out of the tournament.
Tanvi Lad, who was an underdog earlier, grabbed all the attention by putting a laudable effort in the very first set.
Though, she was bit nervous in the beginning but couple of productive rallies helped her to come out of Maria’s influence.
She made swift progress with few uninterrupted points just before the interval and maintained this pace in later part of the game.
The Indian shuttler committed some unforced errors but it did not weaken her grip and she snatched first match point with 22-20 score on the board.
Interestingly, this first set loss worked in favour of the Indonesian shuttler as she switched on her best after going one down.
Maria, who holds sixth spot in tournament ranking, proved her class in very next game and bounced back into the match.
This time she played with the right approach and established an unassailable lead with a couple of successive points.
She did not lose focus at any stage of the game and kept her challenger at the lower end throughout this crucial segment. She swept the table with a significant margin of 21-15.
The third set completely belonged to Maria as she did not give her competitor even a single counter-attack opportunity and blew her away with an indomitable difference of twelve points. She dominated overall pace of the rallies and placed an overwhelming
figure of 21-9.
Her next challenge will be to surpass the Japanese player Kaori Imabeppu and a win will take her into quarter-final round.
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