Tian Houwei overwhelms Kestutis Navickas in epic semi-final of the 2011 Russian Open Grand Prix
China’s un-seeded shuttler, Tian Houwei, secured an unexpected podium berth as he has defeated second seed, Kestutis Navickas of Lithuania, in the Men’s Singles semi-final of the 2011 Russian Open Grand Prix, at Vladivostok, on Saturday, July 2.
Houwei powered his way into the final after delivering a stunning performance against the World Number 40, Navickas. The Chinese thrashed his opponent in a three-set entertaining match by exhibiting 51 minutes of top-class badminton.
Both shuttlers opened the first game in an aggressive manner, as they did not miss any opportunity to hit the bird down by executing jump smashes. The Chinese was trying to target the back-hand side of his rival, whereas, Navickas was relying on his spinning
net strokes followed by powerful smashes.
Until the interval in the opening set of this interesting fight, Houwei was leading by an 11-8 difference. The Lithuanian injected more pace in his strokes to push the Chinese away from the net, but he failed to control the bird and started to make unforced
errors. The Chinese won the opening game by a margin of 21-16, in 18 minutes.
In the second game, Navickas controlled the pace of the rallies by playing with precision. His strokes started to land on the targeted places, which earned him a good position in the second set. The Chinese failed to maintain his winning run in this game,
as he became a little slow and consequently lost the game by a difference of 17-21, in 19 minutes.
The huge Russian crowd in the indoor arena could not have asked for better badminton, as both shuttlers put up a fabulous show in front of them. Houwei worked really hard in the final game to maintain control over the bird and rushed towards the concluding
phase of the game by playing to his full potential.
Houwei finished-off the third game in striking fashion with a big margin of 21-12, in just 14 minutes. The semi-final match ended in 51 minutes with a 21-16, 17-21 and 21-12 score on the board.
In the final, Tian Houwei will fight against his country-mate, Wenlong Zhou, who crushed Zi Liang Derek Wong of Singapore, in their semi-final battle of the tournament.
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