Sho Sasaki brushes aside Sven Eric Kastens in the round of 16 of the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2011
Japan’s Sho Sasaki brushed aside Sven Eric Kastens of Germany in the men’s singles round-of-16 of the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2011, on Thursday, the 17th of March. The 13th seed Sasaki hammered the German in a straight-set fight
that took only 30 minutes on the court. Sven Eric remained lucky in the second round where he got a walkover against teammate Lukas Schmidt. At the quarterfinal stage, Sasaki will meet either the second seed Simon Santoso of Indonesia or Sergey Ivlev of Russia.
The Japanese started the game in a classic fashion by proving that he is the boss of the court. He remained in a clear lead throughout the first half of the opening game until the interval, where he was ahead of the German by an 11-4 margin. Sasaki is one
of the most powerful smashers in the world of badminton and he utilized this skill very effectively.
After the 60-second rest, Sven Eric tried very hard to match the speed of the Japanese but failed to control the bird. Sasaki was playing a perfect game that spared no chance for the German to come back in the set and finished it up with a stunning difference
of 21-10, by spending just 13 minutes in the court.
In the second set, Sven Eric played somewhat better in the first half of the set by playing an attacking game and reached at 8-8. The Japanese played some wonderful down-the-line smashes and earned a three-point lead along with the applause from the crowd.
At the one-minute interval, the German was trailing behind with a gap of 8-11.
The Japanese man remained focused in the game and extended the gap after the interval by taking a 5-point lead at 16-11. Sven Eric then changed his tactics and started to play a parallel game that left no chance for the opponent to smash the bird. He reduced
the difference to 16-18, where Sasaki geared up his game and grabbed the remaining points in a row to finish it by a 21-16 margin in 17 minutes. The final score of this 30-minute battle was, 21-10 and 21-16.
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