Pan Am Junior Championships: Nathan Osborne exceeds Sam Dunner to march into quarter-final round
The young but spirited shuttler Nathan Osborne secured a berth in quarter-finals of Under-19 Boy’s Singles event after beating Sam Dunner in XXI Pan Am Junior Championships on July 25, 2012.
This 38-minute pre quarter-final tussle was staged at Sherwood Park in Alberta, Canada and both local shuttlers pushed each other throughout three games to earn the right to be in the round of eight.
However, Nathan Osborne displayed superior craft on the court and emerged as victor with the scoreboard flashing 21-15, 19-21 and 21-14 margin in his favour.
The top seeded shuttler laid foundation of his supremacy in very first set and kept his challenger grounded in most part of the battle.
In the opening game, Nathan made his intentions clear by swiftly registering 6-3 total and then widened the gap by reaching at dominating position of 9-5.
Though, he blundered in next couple of rallies and allowed his competitor to step forward with four consecutive points but still he finished first half with 11-9 figure.
Nathan geared up himself in third quarter of the set and made difference with 18-14. This four-point deficit proved too much for Sam Dunner who surrendered after reading a 15-21 margin.
However, he made amends in very next game and managed to keep the contest alive. He proved himself a late bloomer and bagged the crucial set despite going down in the first half.
The unseeded shuttler Sam kept trailing behind until 7-10 but then struck hard and added four uninterrupted points in his total to place 11-10 before the interval.
Later part of the game kept swinging between two contenders as none of them could gain a notable advantage all the way to the final moments.
They were locked in a tense battle with 17 points each but then Sam Dunner showed his spark to burn down his rival with 21-19 score.
This setback pushed Nathan Osborne on the back-foot and he took some time to get back on track in the third set of the match.
In the beginning, he was just a nail ahead of his opponent but then second half of the decider saw him making the difference.
He placed a winning figure of 21-14 and setup a quarter-final clash with Andres Quadri of Mexico.
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