Badminton (F)

Badminton (M)

For the badminton preliminaries, the six halls are drawn into two groups of three, whereby each team will play the other team once, and the two teams with the most points will advance to the semi-finals.

The situation for both the girls’ and guys’ teams were rather similar: The girls were drawn into the same group as Kent Ridge and Temasek (last year’s champions). The guys were drawn with Raffles and Kent Ridge (last year’s champions). In other words, both our teams were playing against the reigning champions!

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Girls’ Badminton: KE vs TH

Prior to the match, Annie (girls’ captain) had told me that her team was one of the better teams she’s seen in KE. “For starters, we have a complete team this year!” she exclaimed, “and the players have all trained consistently and showed a lot of improvement”. So it was with a heavy heart that we all watched the team captain go down 0-2 against TH in the very first match-up.

In the end, KE was simply no match against the Goliaths of girls’ badminton. Brenda and Phaik Ching put up a respectable struggle against their opponents. Brenda never gave up,psyching up and encouraging Phaik Ching and herself during the match till the very last point. Melia, Shi Ting and Irene also did not play sloppily against their opponents, despite knowing that the overall match was already lost.

Special mention must go out to Qian Hong for her admirable performance. It seemed to me as if she must have been a newbie in the game when she first joined the team, from the way she hit the shuttlecock very awkwardly (experienced shuttlers have a certain flair and fluidity in their movements), and served rather badly. Yet, once into the game, her drop shots and cuts were very formidable (despite looking deceptively clumsy), scoringmany unstoppable points against the visibly more experienced opponent.

Qian Hong never gave up, straining and striving for every shot, near or far, which resulted in a few rather dramatic falls. If she has always displayed the same kind of attitude and spirit during training, no surprise then that she improved so tremendously in the game within such a short time, so much so that she was entrusted with the critical 2nd Singles match-up against TH!

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Guys’ Badminton: KE vs KR

Nino opened the match with a thrilling 2-0 victory over his opponent. Ever the cool customer, he slowly wore down the resistance of KR’s first player in the first set, allowing him to win comfortably in the second set. Damien, Remus and Wang Qi really tried their best, but were simply outmatched and outplayed in the next two rounds. Once again, they were quite clearly not a match against the champion team of KR.

Ching Mien (guys’ captain) and Kai Kai’s loss, however, was a real heartbreak. They appeared to have been outmaneuvered by their opponents in the first set, but in the second set, the amicable pair seemed to have found their pace and rhythm, reaching the setpoint against their opponents first, only to lose it, along with the match in the end.

Editor: After some detective work, we have tentatively identified this as Ching Mien - by his socks. Photo Comm, please take more pictures of players’ FRONTS!

By the time Josh was on court, many people had already left, since the outcome of the last match was no longer important for this clash between KE and KR. Josh was clearly outmatched by the opponent, and could’ve just taken it easy since KE had already lost, and no one was watching anymore, yet I felt that he took his match the most seriously among all the players that night.

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The turnout of supporters from KE that night was quite impressive, colouring a significant portion of KR’s badminton hall a bright, fiery red! Sadly, however, our cheering, even with some psyching from Dominic and Shahzad, was still somewhat overpowered by the supporters from KR (it’s their own hall, duh… but still…).

The crucial (and realistically winnable) match is this Sunday, where the girls take on KR, and the guys, Raffles. So if you have nothing on, then please do come down to KR to lend your voice to cheer our KE badminton warriors on. However, if you have something on, then sorry, I’m afraid you will just have to cancel whatever appointment you have to come down to support them.

=)

See you at KR this Sunday @1900 hours!

- Zichun