Gunalan lost smile, won match

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33446, 30 January 1974, Page 8

Gunalan lost smile, won match

By

G. S. SKELLERN)

The smiling Malaysian. Punch Gunalan, called on his long experience yesterday to beat the English champion, Derek Talbot, and enter the final of the badminton men’s singles at Cowles Stadium. With only a week's train-' hg before the Games, be-i rau.se of pressure of work,; Sunalan. the South-East i Asia singles champion. ad-| Bitted: “Everyone in the' tournament is titter than! ne." After the 29-year-old I Jlalay-iin sales representa-! tive had won a tiring first tame. Talbot took the nitiative in the second and uunalan let it go. “Talbot was much fitter .han me. If the secund game' fad gone close and I had lost r. then the pace would have iTected me in the decider.”i le said. And Gunalan had noi

reason to feel he had read the match wrongly. Gunalan. who turns 30 next week, started boldly against Talbot. smashing from all parts of the court and running to leads of 8-5 and 13-8, and finally winning the first game. 15-12. He was great to watch as the spectators waited anxiously for the unpredictable Malaysian to produce the next spectacular shot. The crowd was not let down. Gunalan twisted his racket to send the shuttle in a different direction and to catch Talbot on the wrong foot. He flicked his wrists to produce back-hand winners, and his powerful smash was working to perfection and putting Talbot on the defensive. Talbot made a recovery! which did not stop until he! had taken the second game,. 15-1. and drew even. The! third game was point for! point until Gunalan hit into! the net with Talbot lying on the floor.

Gunalan’s ever - ready i smile dropped, and he was; full of determination in the! final rallies, winning the de-! ciding game 15-12. “When I made that mis-! take at the net, it spurred me I on and I hit everything as I hard as I could. But I was} very surprised to win: Talbot} played beautifully. And, of course he was much fitter,” said Gunalan. Gunalan’s opponent in the final is a “surprised” Jamie l Paulson (Canada), the defending title-holder. Paulson! beat the Edinburgh silver} medallist, Paul Whetnall! (England), but it was almost! a non-match. Whetnall strained a> muscle during his long! quarter-final match against} Han Aik Mong (Malaysia), and he continued to favour h the injury against Paulson. ! The Canadian played ah steady game, kept his mis-}' takes to a minimum, and*: overwhelmed Whetnall. 15-4, |i 15-0. By the end of the! second game, Whetnall hadH

I given up running for shots. , The women’s singles final I will be a clash between the I England doubles partners, I the defending champion, Miss 'Margaret Beck, and the | Edinburgh silver medallist, Mrs Gillian Gilks. “It’s going to be a tough | match. We play together all the time in England and we both have a. turn at winning. Let’s hope it’s my turn on Thursday,” Miss Beck said —but it might just as easily have been said by Mrs Gilks. I Miss Beck continued to I show her outstanding j finesse in the semi-finals (when she made only one }error in the first game j against her team-mate, Mrs (Sue Whetnall. But she made }some ususual errors in the I second game and Mrs Whet*nall put up solid resistance. But Miss Beck’s tremenIdous power and speed around [the court was the deciding 'factor, and she took the match, 11-1, 11-9. Mrs Gilks had a harder time against the top Malay-'

sian woman, Miss Sylvia Ng, who played with great determination in the first game and won it, 11-5. But Mrs Gilks, who packs a smash like a man’s, powered her way through the second game, and was so far on top in the third that she finished the later stages of the match without conceding a point. England’s No. 2 men’s doubles pair, Michael Tredgett and Raymond Stevens, put up a tremendous performance to beat the No. 2 seeds, Gunalan and Dominic Soong (Malaysia). As expected the other men’s doubles semi-final was won by the favourites, Talbot and Eliott Stuart (England), who beat Scotland’s top pair. Bob McCoig and Fraser Gow, in two straight games. And it will be all England in both the women’s doubles and mixed doubles, ensuring its representatives of four golds and four silvers from the badminton competition.