Niluka Karunaratne stretches his winning run at OCBC US Open Grand Prix Gold

Niluka Karunaratne stretches his winning run at OCBC US Open Grand Prix Gold

Niluka Karunaratne, the top shuttler of Sri Lanka, remained confident on court in Men’s Singles second when he ousted the local shuttler Sirachai Phanpuchara at the Yonex OCBC US Open Grand Prix Gold 2012 on Tuesday, at Los Angeles, USA.

The right-handed Niluka had to employ all of his skills to outplay his rival in a hard-fought battle that took 37 minutes of thrilling badminton from both sides.

The local shuttler Sirachai, in the meanwhile, put up a strong resistance against his higher ranked rival but failed to live up to expectations in the final set and lost the battle in three games with a reasonable score.

The opening points of first set were interesting when both shuttlers put up superb performance and reached at 9-9 when Niluka executed powerful smashes to take an 11-9 lead until the break.

The higher ranked Niluka continued his positive after the break as he played positive badminton in all areas of the court. He did not let his local opponent to catch up at any stage in ending part and took the first game with a margin of 21-14.

In the second set, the lower ranked Sirachai who showed up his brilliance by working extra hard in the court. He played better badminton and took a startling lead of 11-4 until the end of first half.

Niluka tried his best to catch up his rival after the break but failed to bridge the huge gap on score board and eventually lost the game with a 17-21 score on the board.

In the final game, the Sri Lankan became aggressive on court as he employed his powerful smashes and impressive net killings to take a stunning lead of 11-2 until mid-game interval.

The higher ranked Niluka remained consistent in his fireworks without sparing any chance for his rival to narrow the gap. He showed his brilliance and took the game with a 21-14 score on the board.

The Sri Lankan ended up the fight in rubber games with a superb margin of 21-14, 17-21 and 21-14.

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Posted by Muhammad Ahmad Nazir on Jul 7 2012. Filed under USA, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry