Zulfadli Zulkifli beats Tan Jin Shen in the Men’s Singles final of the National Junior Circuit 2011
Malaysia’s Zulfadli Zulkifli defeated Tan Jin Shen in the Under-18 Men’s Singles final of the National Junior Circuit 2011, at Ipoh, Malaysia, on April 17.
The top seed, Zulfadli, took 25 minutes to chuck out Tan Jin, who earlier defeated Chia Yi Jie in the semi-final of the event in a straight-set match.
This win in the National Junior event has proved the skills of Zulfadli, who is passionate to serve his country at the international level. He expressed his views and said, “My ultimate goals this year is to win honours for the country in the Asian and world
junior tournaments.”
He further added, “I am waiting for the BAM (Badminton Association of Malaysia) to invite me to join the centralised training programme.”
In the final match, Zulfadli started his campaign in a nervous fashion, as he made some unforced errors that provided an opportunity for his opponent to take a 7-4 lead, in the opening half of the first set. However, the top seed overcome his flaws and levelled
the score at 10-10 and then scored the 11th point at the end of the opening half of the first set.
The quality of the game was superb as both players moved forward in the first set with an equal pace. The score was 12-12, when Zulfadli played much better by stretching his lead and won the first set with a tight margin of 21-17, in just 14 minutes.
In the second set, both shuttlers remained toe-to-toe by keeping the speed of the game quite high. The score was 9-9, when Zulfadli scored two points in a row and took a slight lead of 11-9. After the one-minute break, Tan Jin tried hard to level the score
but failed as his opponent was playing a flawless game.
Zulfadli proved that he is much better in every aspect of the game at the junior level. He finished the second set with a one sided score of 21-13, in just 11 minutes. The concluding score of this 25-minute straight-set match was 21-17 and 21-13.
The consistent performance of Zulfadli in the junior events proved that he has gained a certain level of skills and is capable of entering in the squad of junior shuttlers. His tremendous win over Tan Jin in the final showdown of the National Junior Circuit
justified that he is physically and mentally fit, along with being good in the technical and tactical aspects of the game.
He is expected to enter in the National team as a back-up shuttler at the end of the proceeding year and will receive training from the most experienced coaches of Malaysia.
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