Nguyen Tien Minh tames Keat Zhen Kong in Men’s Singles first round of the 2011 Chinese Taipei Open
Vietnam’s top shuttler, Nguyen Tien Minh cleared his first hurdle in the Men’s Singles draw as he tamed Malaysia’s Keat Zhen Kong in the first round of the 2011 Chinese Taipei Open, in Chinese Taipei, on Wednesday, September 7.
Tien Minh, who is currently World Number 7 in the Men’s Singles rankings, is in tremendous form as he clinched the Men’s Singles title in the home event of Vietnam Open Grand Prix last week. He is also the top seed in the Taipei Open and continued playing
remarkable badminton as he showed no mercy to his Malaysian opponent and finished off the match in straight games.
The Vietnamese has been performing well for the last couple of years and remained in the top ten shuttlers in the world rankings. In the first round battle against Keat Zhen at the Taipei Open, Tien Minh displayed an inspiring show by playing on a completely
different level.
Right from the opening points of the first game, the top seed remained in complete control of the rallies and played top-class badminton with surprising ease. His wonderful accuracy and fast movement in all areas of the court made his rival quite helpless.
The Malaysian struggled in the start but soon gave up as his higher ranked challenger was not leaving any room for him to place his shots.
The top seeded Vietnamese tested all of his strokes against the lower ranked Malaysian to get familiar with the court’s conditions. He remained ahead of Keat Zhen by maintaining a comfortable margin throughout the opening game and bagged it with a dramatic
margin of 21-10, in just 9 minutes.
In the second game, Keat Zhen accelerated his speed to catch up the pace of the game but he completely failed to employ his strokes effectively as his opponent was quicker in picking the bird from all corners of the court. Tien Minh clinched the second set
by playing planned and positive badminton with the margin of 21-11, in 11 minutes. The end result of this 20-minutes Men’s Singles opening round fight was 21-10 and 21-11.
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