Lee demolishes Ghosal, wins gold

The second seeded Indian was only able to take the first game and was outplayed in the next three games and Ghosal had to settle for a maiden silver medal at the Asian Championships.

Ghosal started well and raced to a three-point lead to put pressure on his opponent right from the word go. Both the players slugged it out for every point and neither was in a mood to relent. At one point, they even played in what could be the longest rally of the tournament so far.

It was Ghosal’s deftness that allowed him to take the upper hand. Lee came back a tad stronger in the second set and took a 5-2 lead but Ghosal crawled to a 5-4 score line soon. The top seed then upped the ante and made Ghosal run to all corners of the court. At one point, it even looked like Ghosal was giving up on the game when it looked like he conceded easy points, with a hope of staging a comeback in the next game.

Deadlocked at one game apiece, it was a fresh start for the top two seeds. Lee raced to a three-point lead but a plethora of unforced errors, where he couldn't take the returns clean and fell short of his target, allowed the Indian to draw level. However, Lee started to dictate terms soon after and the Indian fell prey to his strategy. Lee won the third game at 11-8 to race to a two-game lead.

The fourth game was no different from the previous two and Ghosal was always trying to catch up with Lee. Ghosal could only delay the inevitable by taking a couple of points, but when his return fell short, it was all over for him and ecstasy for Lee.