Robert Blair, Shen Tan become Men’s Doubles champions in 2012 Bulgarian International
Men’s Doubles experts Robert Blair and Bin Shen Tan emerged as champions in Babolat Bulgarian International as they remained invincible in the final round on Sunday, October 7, 2012.
They overwhelmed the higher ranked German duo Andreas Heinz-Max Schwenger by registering 21-10 and 21-17 scores on the board.
This 27-minute tussle was staged at local badminton arena of Sofia in Bulgaria and both teams honest effort was applauded by the crowd.
Robert Blair and Shen Tan, who belong to Scotland and Malaysia respectively, displayed superb coordination in both games and sealed a straight-set victory.
Meanwhile, the fourth seeded duo Andreas Heinz-Max Schwenger failed to come out of their rivals’ influence and surrendered tamely.
The battle heated up when the scratch pair of Robert and Shen unleashed a flurry of power packed strokes and pushed the opposing team on the back-foot.
They dominated overall pace of the opening rallies in the first set and strengthened their grip by placing an indomitable total of 9-3.
German team strived hard to come out of this deficit but they could not hit the mark before one-minute interval.
After the break, Robert and Shen showed consistency in their performance and raised their lead with 13-5 margin on the board. They did not squander this golden opportunity and transformed this initial lead into a winning figure of 21-10.
However, it was not an easy win as Andreas Heinz and Max Schwenger showed commendable fighting spirit in the following game and made this tie a memorable contest.
They employed interesting tactics and dazzled their challengers with a lustrous performance in first half of the set.
Robert and Shen could not read their opponents’ game and remained at the lower end until the half time but later they managed to push back with transformed character.
They pocketed three valuable points in a row after 13-12 and then capitalised this advantage by prevailing in couple of consecutive rallies in third quarter of the set.
Though, Andreas Heinz and Max Schwenger made every effort to avoid a straight-set defeat but they had to bow down after reading 17-21 score on the board.
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