MORGAN RECOVERS AFTER EARLY SET BACK
Great Britain's Kelly Morgan in action against India's Aparna Popat in the Women's singles. Morgan won 5-11, 11-7, 11-2. Piccture: Zainal Abd Halim/Reuters
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Great Britain clocked up its first victory of Sydney 2000, when Kelly Morgan battled back to conquer Aparna Popat of India 5-11 11-7 11-2 in the women’s singles.
The Welshwoman was just four points away from a first-round exit before reeling off seven straight points to capture the second game.
Morgan cruised in the third, eliminating the player she beat two years ago to win the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Morgan, reacting to her hard-earned win, said: "I lost the first set and I was down in the second set and I just had to dig in and relax and play a little bit better than I had been playing."
"I’d played the girl twice before so I knew I could beat her. The pressure was really on me to do the business and I just had to think to myself that the Olympics is once every four years and I don’t want to blow it in the first match."
There was further success for Britain when Julia Mann swept to victory against Amrita Sawaran of Mauritius, winning 11-0 11-0, and in the mixed doubles Joanne Goode and Simon Archer beat Canadians Robbyn Hermitage and Brent Olynyk 15-9 15-9.
The fifth seeds have been in stunning form in the run up to the Games, but weren't too pleased with their opening round performance. '“We were too relaxed out there,' said Archer. 'We made too many errors and didn’t move well early on. It took half a set to get into the match and we found that we didn’t finish off rallies when we had the chance. There is improvement to be made if we’re going to be in contention for the latter stages of the tournament.'
However, there was disappointment for Britain’s other mixed doubles pairing of Chris Hunt and Donna Kellogg who crashed out in the first round. The British No 2 pair were simply blown away by their Indonesian opponents, Zelin Resiana and Bambang Suprianto, losing 15-10 15-1.
PETER WATTS
Sunday Times
