Wong Choong Hann ruins the hopes of Tommy Sugiarto in the semi-final of the Australian Open GP Gold
Malaysia’s Wong Choong Hann destroyed the hopes of Tommy Sugiarto of Indonesia by beating him in the men’s singles semi-final of the Australian Open GP Gold 2011, on Saturday, April 6. The Open is being held at Melbourne, Australia.
The eighth seed Malaysian took just 46 minutes to brush aside the ninth seed Sugiarto, who stopped the winning run of the top seed Boonsak Ponsana of Thailand in the quarterfinal. In the final of the tournament, Choong Hann will fight against the sixth seed,
Sho Sasaki of Japan, who defeated the 15th seed Yan Kit Chan of Hong Kong in the semi-final.
Choong Hann started the game at a brisk pace. The left-hander played his normal game and remained successful in dictating the pace of the match. Sugiarto tried hard to match the speed of his opponent but lost his control, making a lot of unforced errors.
The Malaysian won the opening set with a 21-16 margin in 22 minutes.
In the second set, both shuttlers were playing with the same pace and the rallies grew longer as compared to the first set. Choong Hann was playing quite outstandingly as he established a 3- point lead with the score 11-8 at the end of the opening half of
the second set. After the interval, Sugiarto geared up his speed and leveled the score at 12-12. The match became more thrilling as both players became very quick on the net and both tried to keep the bird as low as possible.
The score moved forward slowly as the quality and speed of the game increased from both sides. The excitement in the crowd could be sensed as the score reached the crucial stage of 16-16, that's when Choong Hann managed to score three consecutive points
and set a lead of 19-16.
Sugiarto changed his tactics and they seemed to have worked in his favour when he leveled the score by reaching 19-19. However, it was the Malaysian who dominated the final stages of the game and finished it up by scoring two points in a row, winning the
second set 21-19, in 29 minutes. The final score of the 46-minute semi-final match was 21-16 and 21-19.
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