German Open 2010, Close But No Cigar

On Wednesday I had the chance to play a very good player from Hong Kong, Wing Ki Wong. It was the first round of the German Open 2010. As I was warming up I was having flashbacks of last year’s match against Hans Kristian Vittinghus (Denmark) where he just whooped me on court 1. I remember the court because on that day I could not see the shuttle to save my life. I was praying that I would play on any court but that one. As luck or fate should have it, I was called on court one to face Wing Ki Wong and my fear of that court.
Uncertain of many things I just decided to relax and play and see how things go in the beginning. It was a good choice since I took an early lead of 8-2 and 11-7. I was winning many points by really punching him to the back line and then stinging him with some slices and steep smashes. The shuttles were very slow so the big smash was not very useful. However he started to crawl back by doing the same to me and being very steady. We were having very long and painful rallies since none of us wanted to make a mistake. I ended up being in the lead 19-18 when he then played 2 good rallies by taking the initiative and then closed the set by countering my attack.
In the second set it was a little bit of the reverse. He took an early lead and was up all through the first half. The rallies were very similar, lots of punching the shuttle to the back line and trying to put enough pressure around the court to find an oppening. The player who pressured most usualy won the rally. However from being down 11-14, I came back to 14-14. He then went up 17-14 and I came back to 17-17. At 18-18 he once again played two very good rallies and then countered my attacks on his match point. It was a shame since we were even all the way through and then I missed out on those last few rallies.
He then went on to beat the number one Chinese Taipei who is 17th in the world and Przemyslaw Wacha (Poland). So I think I played very well against a world class player.
My next tournament will be in Romania where I hope to produce a very good result!
In order to see the results for the German Open 2010 please click on the link below
DRAW