Thomas Cup Finals: Lin Dan roars against Lee Hyun Il in title match – Badminton Update
Men’s Singles maestro Lin Dan of China maintained his record of being invincible in Thomas Cup Finals as he ambushed Lee Hyun Il in final match on May 27, 2012.
World Number two shuttler raised his hands as Champion after putting convincing figures of 21-14 and 21-17 in two games.
However, it was not a one-sided affair as veteran Korean also registered his class by resisting for 54 minutes.
Earlier, the Chinese ace outclassed Rajiv Ouseph and Simon Santoso in group stage followed by victories against Daren Liew and Sho Sasaki in quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively.
One day after mauling top Japanese shuttler Sho Sasaki, Lin Dan fired again leaving Lee Hyun Il utterly clueless in their 16th meeting.
The hammering started in very first set as badminton king kept his rival at lower end with some power packed strokes.
He gradually increased the pace of rallies and gained a decent three-point advantage at 8-5. He managed to enter in break time as leading contender with 11-8 total.
Later part of the game started with some decent backlash from Hyun Il but local shuttler reinstated his dominance by reaching 17-11 with some back-to-back points.
World and Olympic Champion Lin Dan served the notice of his supremacy by registering winning margin of 21-14.
However, World Number seven Lee Hyun Il displayed respectable skills in following game. This time there were not too many hit shots or gifted-away rallies for the Chinese campaigner.
The Korean, who never won against Lin Dan after 2008 Korea Open, strived hard to end this long streak of failures and chased his competitor all the way to the final moments.
In first half of the set, the native shuttler remained in authoritative position as he established a significant lead of seven points before the break.
However, he lost grip for short period of time when Hyun Il made a swift charge with some continuous rallies.
First, he narrowed the gap at 15-16 and then caught his opponent at 17 each. But Lin Dan kick-started final phase of heavy scoring and fetched first game for his team with a favourable margin of 21-17.
This first loss turned too heavy for Korean side as they could not rise in following encounters and China stole the show with a magnificent 3-0 victory.
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