Simon Santoso and Lee Hyun Il move to the semifinals of Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2011
Indonesian ace Simon Santoso and Korea’s Lee Hyun Il are through to the semifinals, as they defeated their opponents in the quarterfinals of the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold 2011 at Basel, on Friday, March 18. The second seed Santoso trounced the 13th seed
Sho Sasaki of Japan in a straight-set match, whereas Lee Hyun showed the exit door to Pablo Abian of Spain with the same results. The winners will compete in the semi-final showdown of the event in the evening today.
Santoso started the game with great speed and quickly built a difference of 6-4 in a few minutes. Sasaki caught the momentum and levelled the difference by reaching at 10-10. Till the interval, the Indonesian was leading the game by an 11-10 margin.
Returning back from the one-minute break, Santoso started to entertain the crowd by playing tumbling net-strokes followed by powerful jump smashes. The Japanese had no answer to the fast and accurate strokes of the opponent and lost the opening set by a
decent margin of 21-17, in 20 minutes.
In the second game, both players employed every skill they had in their basket and reached 15-15. That’s where the Indonesian occupied the driving seat by playing more attacking strokes and eventually won the set by a 21-18 margin, in 15 minutes. The final
score of the 45-minute match was 21-17 and 21-18.
In another men’s singles battle, Lee Hyun proved his superb skills by defeating the Spanish in just 32 minutes. Abian worked hard to match the speed of the opponent till 8-8, where the Korean scored three consecutive points and took a three-point lead at
11-8, till the interval. After the break, Lee Hyun continued his impressive run and won the set by a good margin of 21-14, in 17 minutes.
The Korean played aggressively in the second set and remained ahead of Abian till the end of the game. At the end of the first half of the second set, Lee Hyun was leading by an 11-7 margin. After the break, he remained focused and finished up the set with
a one-sided score of 21-12, in just 15 minutes. The final score of this straight-set match was, 21-14 and 21-12.
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