Portugal’s Telma Santos defeated Sri Lanka’s Thilini Jayasinghe 2-0 in a Group M badminton match of London Olympics played at the Wembley Arena today (30).
Jayasinghe suffered her second successive defeat at the Olympics today after Santos claimed the game in straight sets by 21-9 and 21-11.
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Thilini goes down without a fight
By S.R. Pathiravithana reporting from London
The first Sri Lankan to take the Olympic 2012 stage for Sri Lanka – Badminton player Thilini Jayasinghe as
expected went down to Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon without a fight at 21-13 and 21-5 on court 3 at the
Wembley Sports arena here today.
In the first set, the Lankan shuttler played better though trailing right through the game, where her
short lobs and some dashes worked.
It was only in the second set that Thilini jumped ahead of her opponent at 2-1. But Intanon who was
chosen Thailand’s female athlete of the year for 2011 settled and came back hard on her opponent,
never giving up the grip of the game thereafter.
After the game which hardly lasted thirty minutes Thilini said “I played better in the first set and if
my long shots did not go out I would have reached the first eleven points before Intanon. Had that
happened it would have made a huge difference in the game.
“The second set was different when I had to play against the wind. It became really difficult to control
my shots.”
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