File photo of Kiran George.© X (formerly Twitter)
India’s Kiran George dished out yet another gritty performance to upset third seed Chi Yu Jen of Chinese Taipei in a tough three-game match and progress to the men’s singles quarterfinals of the Korea Masters badminton tournament in Iksan City, Korea on Thursday. The 24-year-old Indian overcame his Chinese Taipei opponent, ranked 31 in the world, 21-17 19-21 21-17 in a second round match that lasted one hour and 15 minutes. World number 44 George will play fifth seed Takuma Obayashi of Japan in the last-eight round. Earlier also, George had to dig deep to defeat Vietnam’s Kuan Lin Kuo 15-21 21-12 21-15 in the opening round of the BWF Super 300 tournament.
George, the lone Indian shuttler competing in the tournament, started brightly and always had his nose ahead of his Chinese Taipei rival in the opening game to eventually take the lead.
In the second game, George continued in the same vein and enjoyed early lead before Jen bounced back to draw level.
But the Indian returned to his elements in the decider and raced to 8-2 lead before his opponent slowly and steadily clawed his way back to level things at 14-14 and then to 17-17.
But from there on, it was George who took control of the proceedings to seal his quarterfinal berth.
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