Once again I played Anup Sridhar (India) in the qualification of a Super Series and once again I came short. I lost today in two sets 21-10 21-11. There was not much to the match since it was pretty straight forward. He played better and managed the wind much better than I did. Even though I had done some practice in the wind before leaving for Asia it was still too difficult to manage. I thought he did a very good job of keeping the net and punching the shuttle to the back. On the fast side I hit too many out the back and did not win the net enough for me to keep the attack. On the slow side I did not punch the shuttle to the back effectively enough, while he was able to keep pressuring me.
I will be playing him again in Indonesia next week, hopefully this match will be fresh in my mind since in the end of both sets I felt I got a much better rhythm.
In other matches I thought that the match between Chun Seang TAN (Malaysia) and Christian Lind Thomsen (Denmark) was VERY exciting. Both players had a very good feel for the court and what strategy to apply on each side. In the second set Lind was down 20-18 (but won the first set) but saved one set point to bring it to 20-19. In that rally both players were playing fast and furious and there were many smashes and good returns until Lind finaly smash cross court and TAN dove and saved it and just got it over the net and in to win the set! Incredible. In the third Lind was down again 20-18 and brought it back to 20-20 and even got a match point 21-20 but eventualy lost 23-21. It was incredible to watch and both players were showing alot of emotions which I believe makes it MUCH more fun for spectators:)
I will do some more reporting for the matches through the week. Hope you will be eager to read as I am eager to write:)
