Sri Lanka’s young champion shuttler Niluka Karunaratne missed the opportunity of being crowned as the champion at the Korean Grand Prix, when Singapore’s Shi Liang Dereck Wong defeated him in straight two sets.
The first set saw Wong capitalizing on a number of errors which he had picked from Karunaratne’s play.it was an easy turn-around of events to the Singaporean when the he reached 21 points, leaving behind his Asian counterpart jammed at 14 points. Having stepped into the second set with a lead, Wong was given a good chase by Karunaratne, who eventually ended up at 20 points, when Wong hit the winning point at 22.
Karunaratne, who is currently holding a world rank at 58, had earlier defeated Shi Liang: who is ranked at 38, in straight two sets – 21-18 and 21-11.
In the second round match, he had an easy encounter against Wishnu Yuli when Yuli was defeated 21-16 and 21-14.
Niluka Karunaratne, who drew much attention during the recently concluded London 2012 Olympics, currently holds his world rank at 40.
