Vietnam Open Grand Prix: Nguyen Tien Minh crushes Keigo Sonoda in the Men’s Singles round-of-16
Vietnam’s Nguyen Tien Minh easily entered into the Men’s Singles quarter-final after crushing Japan’s Keigo Sonoda in the round-of-16 match at the 2011 Vietnam Open Grand Prix, in Vietnam, on Thursday, August 25.
The top seed, Tien Ming, who is also currently World Number Seven in the Men’s Singles rankings, showed no mercy to the Japanese and thrashed him with an impressive margin. The Vietnamese finished off the battle by taking 39 minutes in the court. The Japanese
failed to match the speed and skill of his opponent throughout the match and failed to produce an impressive performance.
Tien Minh, who is an attacking shuttler, opened his journey against Sonoda in the Men’s Singles pre-quarter-final battle in his usual aggressive way. He missed no opportunity of smashing the bird hard followed by impressive net killings. He was dictating
the pace and making his opponent move around the court with his wonderful driving rallies.
The top seed was employing his elite skills against the Japanese who failed to create opportunities to dominate the game. Until the one-minute interval, the local shuttler was moving far ahead by reaching at 11-6.
After taking a short break for 60 seconds, Tien Minh again continued his journey in the same attacking fashion. His fast movement at the net and powerful down the line smashes helped him in winning the opening set with a stunning score of 21-12, by taking
18 minutes in the court.
Sonoda changed his game in the second set where he played with aggression this time. He was quicker at the net to keep Tien Minh away in a defensive position. However, the top seed put more variations in his strokes and started to play with deception at
the net. Tien Minh had to work more hard in the second game when compared to the first one as his opponent was playing better badminton.
After a good fight, the top seed won the second set with a margin of 21-15, in 21 minutes. The concluding score of this straight set round-of-16 match was 21-12 and 21-15.
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