Taufik Hidayat narrowly wins against Daren Liew in the 2011 Indonesia Open Premier Super Series
Indonesia’s Taufik Hidayat remained lucky as he defeated Malaysian’s Daren Liew in a tight three-set match in the Men’s Singles first round of the 2011 Indonesia Open Premier Super Series, at Jakarta, Indonesia, on Wednesday, June 22.
Taufik, who is the World Number Three and third seed of the event, faced a strong resistance from the Malaysian, who stretched the Indonesian to a tight rubber-game fight of 77 minutes.
Taufik, the former Olympic gold medallist and World Champion, had to work really hard to get rid of the Malaysian, who was playing better badminton. The first game progressed in interesting fashion in front of a packed indoor arena.
The crowd could not have asked for a better game as it was the best fight of the day. Both shuttlers employed all of their skills to dominate the game, however, nobody managed to win until the score reached at the dramatic stage of 28-28, where Taufik clinched
two consecutive points to finish the set with a narrow margin of 30-28, in 37 minutes.
The second set was also a tough contest between both shuttlers, who were close in the whole set as they were playing with a similar attacking style. The score reached at the critical stage of 21-21, where Taufik made a mistake which cost him the second game
by a 21-23 margin, in 22 minutes.
In the final set, the local hero played better badminton in the whole set and spared no room for the Malaysian to dominate the match. At the interval, Taufik was having a three-set lead of 11-8. After the break, the Indonesian geared up his pace and started
to play aggressively, which helped him in winning the third set by a 21-12 difference, in 17 minutes. The score of this thrilling rubber-set match was 30-28, 21-23 and 21-12.
In the Men’s Singles second round, Taufik will be up against Bao Chunlai of China, who brushed aside Rajiv Ouseph of England, in the first round of this Premier Super Series championship.
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