Tournament review (part 1)
What a tiring weekend it has been! I skipped 4 hrs worth of lectures & tutes on Monday because I was feeling dead the whole day... Not that those are really important anyway, but I would have usually attended them rather than sleeping at home. Even after several days, my body still feels tired and I don't seem to have much energy to move around, but then that might be because I haven't been sleeping well at all.
Some personal reviews on the tournament results. Saturday: played 3 events & won 2 of 'em in B grade. I sort of expected myself to get that result, even though it wasn't as easy at it looks. In singles, got through the 1st round pretty easily and had time to play around trying to get tighter net shots so that I wouldn't struggle to win in the subsequent rounds. After a while, I felt confident and it was time to move on. I started smashing a bit & finished the opponent off (who by that time has 11 pts) in 4 mins. Fantastic. Everything going according to plan, until I meet the unseeded-but-turn-out to be eventual winner in the 2nd round and got canned 21-2! Well, that wasn't really a true reflection of the match, but even then I wouldn't have beaten him. Great, out of the singles in the 2nd round B grade & I was supposed to be playing A grade on Sunday!
Turned out that it wasn't such a bad results after all. It allowed me to conserve my energy to play doubles later in the day. Got through the group stage of Men's doubles pretty easily (beat both pairs by less than 5 pts), & we're scheduled to meet Tack & Michael Ong in the semis. Surprise2x, Both Boi2 & I agreed & came up to the quick conclusion that we should keep on lifting to Michael till he f***s up himself, which was exactly what we did during the match. Now, for those who doesn't know Michael, he is actually quite a decent player w/ a decent defense, but that's about all he can do (oh did I forget to mention that he only does drop shots, or maybe those are smashes??). We stuck to our plan, keeping Tack out of the game almost completely and watching how Michael got pressurized and stuffed up his shots. Leading 11-4 at first, we quickly got to 14-4.... & that scoreline persisted for 10 mins before they made a breakthrough. By then we were losing a bit of concentration and they were starting to catch up, but once we started hitting to Michael again, there was no doubt who would be the winner ultimately (Final score: 21-12)
Had to be pretty content with the results thus far, since that was only the 2nd time I've partnered Boi2 in tournament (the 1st time was in City of Melbourne Kilsyth, lost to Einstein/Luke 21-17!!). Boi2 still hasn't grasped how to play doubles the conventional way, but he made it up by covering the court well during those matches (w/ his singles footwork!). I always felt secure when I need to go forward to finish off a point because I know he's able to cover for me at the back. All good, now on to the final. Tack had earlier warned us that those 2 indos. are hard smashers & we'd have to be careful.
A lot of players don't like playing against hard smashers because it's hard to return their shots. I happen to have the opposing view. Since my game is based on strong drives & counterattacks, my game actually thrives the harder the opponent smashes. That was proven in the final when those two players would smash directly at me & I'd drive it cross court and move forward to kill off the point. Even if they managed to get past me Boi2 would be at the back to finish it off with a smash & we took the 1st set 15-3. 2nd set was much more tiring from a physical perspective as we started to hit long rallies and I was hitting frameshots when I tried to smash, which always happens whenever I'm tired. Boi2 was still holding up & it was an even match until 12-12. At that point I thought it's either now or never as I thought my body probably wouldn't hold up if there's a rubber set. Summoning all my remaining energy, I started smashing full power & luckily that strategy worked. We ended up winning 15-12 and the 1st winner trophy was in the bag!
Mixed doubles: No big problems in this category. I thought the toughest match was actually the 1st one, when we beat Jonsen/Diana 21-8. The scoreline probably doesn't reflect the intensity of the match, but we held up & they self-destructed towards the end. Sailed past the other group matches easily, but I was still feeling tired from the Men's doubles final at that time (courtesy of my partner Han Xue, who took over the 'normal' guy's role for the remaining 2 matches while I was standing at the net!). We then had to beat Boi2/Alice in the semis, & again I wasn't playing much of a role in this one, allowing Xue to control the match at the front and I was just finishing off the chances she had set up. Marcus stood on our way to the crown in the final, & according to Xue & Kitty he has a really strong smash. They kept on reminding me not to lift at all, particularly Xue, who really believed that she couldn't take his smash. During the 1st set, I found out that he didn't really have that strong a smash & he's way overrated in terms of his abilities. Xue was making errors at the net throughout the match, which were not really typical of her usual steady style. She told me during the break (we won 1st set 17-16) it was because of her fear of Marcus's smashes if she was forced to lift, that had forced the errors. I reassured her that I could take his smashes all right & she didn't even need to come back if she had to lift. With Xue making less mistakes, she started to set up chances again & before long, we won the 2nd set 15-4. 2nd trophy in the cabinet! Yay! I was less enthusiastic with the rackets prizes though, since I already have 4 of 'em in my bag.. oh well, I won't complain so much since it's all free...
To be continued....
Some personal reviews on the tournament results. Saturday: played 3 events & won 2 of 'em in B grade. I sort of expected myself to get that result, even though it wasn't as easy at it looks. In singles, got through the 1st round pretty easily and had time to play around trying to get tighter net shots so that I wouldn't struggle to win in the subsequent rounds. After a while, I felt confident and it was time to move on. I started smashing a bit & finished the opponent off (who by that time has 11 pts) in 4 mins. Fantastic. Everything going according to plan, until I meet the unseeded-but-turn-out to be eventual winner in the 2nd round and got canned 21-2! Well, that wasn't really a true reflection of the match, but even then I wouldn't have beaten him. Great, out of the singles in the 2nd round B grade & I was supposed to be playing A grade on Sunday!
Turned out that it wasn't such a bad results after all. It allowed me to conserve my energy to play doubles later in the day. Got through the group stage of Men's doubles pretty easily (beat both pairs by less than 5 pts), & we're scheduled to meet Tack & Michael Ong in the semis. Surprise2x, Both Boi2 & I agreed & came up to the quick conclusion that we should keep on lifting to Michael till he f***s up himself, which was exactly what we did during the match. Now, for those who doesn't know Michael, he is actually quite a decent player w/ a decent defense, but that's about all he can do (oh did I forget to mention that he only does drop shots, or maybe those are smashes??). We stuck to our plan, keeping Tack out of the game almost completely and watching how Michael got pressurized and stuffed up his shots. Leading 11-4 at first, we quickly got to 14-4.... & that scoreline persisted for 10 mins before they made a breakthrough. By then we were losing a bit of concentration and they were starting to catch up, but once we started hitting to Michael again, there was no doubt who would be the winner ultimately (Final score: 21-12)
Had to be pretty content with the results thus far, since that was only the 2nd time I've partnered Boi2 in tournament (the 1st time was in City of Melbourne Kilsyth, lost to Einstein/Luke 21-17!!). Boi2 still hasn't grasped how to play doubles the conventional way, but he made it up by covering the court well during those matches (w/ his singles footwork!). I always felt secure when I need to go forward to finish off a point because I know he's able to cover for me at the back. All good, now on to the final. Tack had earlier warned us that those 2 indos. are hard smashers & we'd have to be careful.
A lot of players don't like playing against hard smashers because it's hard to return their shots. I happen to have the opposing view. Since my game is based on strong drives & counterattacks, my game actually thrives the harder the opponent smashes. That was proven in the final when those two players would smash directly at me & I'd drive it cross court and move forward to kill off the point. Even if they managed to get past me Boi2 would be at the back to finish it off with a smash & we took the 1st set 15-3. 2nd set was much more tiring from a physical perspective as we started to hit long rallies and I was hitting frameshots when I tried to smash, which always happens whenever I'm tired. Boi2 was still holding up & it was an even match until 12-12. At that point I thought it's either now or never as I thought my body probably wouldn't hold up if there's a rubber set. Summoning all my remaining energy, I started smashing full power & luckily that strategy worked. We ended up winning 15-12 and the 1st winner trophy was in the bag!
Mixed doubles: No big problems in this category. I thought the toughest match was actually the 1st one, when we beat Jonsen/Diana 21-8. The scoreline probably doesn't reflect the intensity of the match, but we held up & they self-destructed towards the end. Sailed past the other group matches easily, but I was still feeling tired from the Men's doubles final at that time (courtesy of my partner Han Xue, who took over the 'normal' guy's role for the remaining 2 matches while I was standing at the net!). We then had to beat Boi2/Alice in the semis, & again I wasn't playing much of a role in this one, allowing Xue to control the match at the front and I was just finishing off the chances she had set up. Marcus stood on our way to the crown in the final, & according to Xue & Kitty he has a really strong smash. They kept on reminding me not to lift at all, particularly Xue, who really believed that she couldn't take his smash. During the 1st set, I found out that he didn't really have that strong a smash & he's way overrated in terms of his abilities. Xue was making errors at the net throughout the match, which were not really typical of her usual steady style. She told me during the break (we won 1st set 17-16) it was because of her fear of Marcus's smashes if she was forced to lift, that had forced the errors. I reassured her that I could take his smashes all right & she didn't even need to come back if she had to lift. With Xue making less mistakes, she started to set up chances again & before long, we won the 2nd set 15-4. 2nd trophy in the cabinet! Yay! I was less enthusiastic with the rackets prizes though, since I already have 4 of 'em in my bag.. oh well, I won't complain so much since it's all free...
To be continued....
posted by leonhart @ 9:23 PM
1 Comments:
At 2:56 PM,
zello said…
You paid $80ish for the weekend, got two raquets and two trophies for that. Can't complain
if oyu don't like them, sell them :) I'm sure you can mkae some profit from the whole weekend
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