一位羽毛球爱好者的博客

Last Saturday I had the chance to play badminton with a fellow co-op student and her two brothers. This co-op works at the same company as I do, and we also go to the same university, but we have never met each other before the work term started. She is actually an executive on my university’s badminton club, which means that she is not to be taken lightly on the court. After playing with her, I have to say that she’s better than most women/girls I’ve seen. Anyways, the four of us played doubles and we switched teams each time. We played seven games in total and my side won five times. My co-worker and her brothers are pretty decent players, but I have a longer reach and more power than they do, so that’s probably why I ended up winning most of the games. It was a pretty fun session, and maybe I’ll play with her again in the future.

Yesterday JP and I went to our Wednesday session at the local community centre. We played four games in total. The first two games were against a pair of brothers (I think) who tried their best but they weren’t really at our level, so we won both games pretty easily. The third game was against a mixed doubles team. JP and I jumped out to an early lead with our usual attacks, but we made some mistakes in the middle of the game and our opponents mounted a comeback to close the gap to 10-11. That’s the closest they got however, as JP and I switched to a higher gear and scored four straight points to win the game. The last game of the day was against two wily veterans, This was probably the toughest the game of the night because I was starting to tire. The game was pretty close for the first half, but JP and I maintained a slim lead. In the second half of the game I was gasping for my breath, but I knew I had just enough left to win the game. JP and I made some key shots down the stretch, including a cross-court drop shot that left our opponents flat-footed. Final score: 15-7. The game was actually a lot closer than the score would indicate. Our opponents wanted a rematch, but I was done for the night at that point.

I haven’t posted in two weeks, so here are some updates regarding the Wednesday badminton session that JP and I go to. Last week there was a lot of people showed up, so that made for some interesting match ups. JP and I won our first two games pretty easily, but we were soundly defeated in the third game. This was because I was starting to run out of gas, and because that I made a lot of unforced errors in the latter part of the game. We immediately requested a rematch with our opponents. The fourth game was very close, but because of my waning strength our opponents managed to get to 14 points first. However, they made some mistakes and we capitalized to force the extra three points. Unfortunately, I was really out of breath at that point and we ended up losing 14-17.  For the fifth game, we were matched up against a different pair of opponents. Our opponents were still pretty skilled, but they weren’t as good as our previous opponents, and so JP and I managed to get the win. For the last game of the night, JP and I were matched another skilled pair of opponents. At that point I was so tired I could barely run, and therefore despite my hardest efforts we fell 9-15 to our opponents. At the end of the night, JP and I finished with a 3-3 record. It was a pretty tough night for me, and after that Wednesday night I ended up feeling sore for the following Thursday and Friday.

This Wednesday less people showed up for the badminton session, and unlike last week JP and I pretty much just bowled over the competition. We played five games in total and the closest game was 15-5. Granted, this week’s opponents weren’t that strong, but I was in pretty good form this Wednesday, so that might have something to do with our wins.

After playing on Wednesday for a month or so, I think I’ve discovered a pattern to how I usually perform. On Wednesdays, the most important game for me is probably the third game, as this is usually when my initial reserve of strength runs out. I find that if I win the third game then I stand a pretty good chance winning the rest of the games. If I lose the third game however then it might be a long night. This doesn’t really apply to my Sunday sessions, since we play 21 point games on Sundays and those games are usually a lot shorter in duration.

The final thing to mention is that the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics have started. Being Chinese myself, I’m proud that my home country is hosting the games. Sports that I will try to keep an eye on are basketball, athletics (running mostly), gymnastics, swimming, and diving. As for badminton, unfortunately the broadcaster in Canada doesn’t carry any of the badminton matches, despite the fact that a lot of Canadian play badminton themselves. I guess JP and I will have to find some other sources to watch Olympic badminton.

Last Wednesday JP and I went to play badminton at the local community centre as usual. The turnout for that particular day was quite low, because there was fireworks going on that very night, so I suppose a lot of people went to see the fireworks instead of playing badminton. The low attendance meant that the people who were there had to play one game after another without much rest. Some people even signed up in advance for the next game while they are still on the court playing another game.

Anyways, JP and I started the night against a pretty seasoned mixed doubles pair. The male opponent wasn’t the fittest guy around, but he had the skills. The game started and JP and I basically tripped and fell on our faces. Soon we found ourselves down 1-8 a few minutes into the game, mostly because of error on our own part. Our opponents were no pushovers, but JP and I know that we should be able to beat them, so from then on we started to mount our comeback. We pulled to within 11-12. The opponents got the serve back but were only able to get one point, so they led 11-13. When we got back the serve we took control of the game, and after four straight points we complete our comeback victory 15-13. The next game we were up against the same opponents. Unfortunately for them, the first game have warmed us up and we blasted off into a 10-0 lead. After jumping to the big lead, JP and I decide to let up and bit so our opponents can save a bit of face. However, that way of thinking almost cost us as our opponent mounted their own comeback and closed to within 13-10, but they fell a bit short and fell to us 15-10.

After the first two games JP and I were clicking on all cylinders, and our next couple of opponents didn’t stand much of chance. We plowed through our next four games, winning one of the game with a 15-0 score. The final challenge came in our seventh and last game, where JP and I were faced with a young guy with decent skills and a wily veteran with great defense. The game started off pretty evenly matched, but soon JP found a weakness in the young guy’s back court strokes. We took advantage and drove our opponents deep into their own court, and then finished them off with an array of smashes, drop shots, and hard drives. Final score: 15-5.

So at the end of the session, JP and I were undefeated with a 7-0 record. Granted, we didn’t face some of the stronger pairs during the session, but winning seven games in a row is still nice, and it was also the first time I played seven 15-point games during one session.

JP has been pretty busy in the last few weeks and so he hasn’t written here in a while. I’ll do my best fill in and provide some content.

Anyways, last Wednesday I went with JP to play at the local community center again. We dominated our first game just like we had one week before. On the second game we were up against two wily veterans. Our opponents weren’t very powerful in terms of attacks, but they had great defense and a lot of experience. We manage to jump out to an early lead but that’s when I began to feel tired. Capitalizing on the opportunity, our opponents came back and won the game 15-9. Not content on losing, JP and I set up a rematch with the same opponents. This game was very tight, and both sides clawed and crawled to a 10-10 time. Unfortunately, my stamina failed me again and we let the game slip away 10-15. After that contest I was too tired to play against opponents of that level, so JP and I played some other opponents and won our last two games.

Last Sunday I was originally going to play badminton with a friend and some people from my university. Unfortunately I didn’t wake up early enough in the morning, and by the time I was ready to leave my friend called and told me that the badminton facility was full. Well, it’s not a big deal since I had my usual afternoon session with JP as backup. Yesterday’s session was worth mentioning because we had two special guests. JP brought over one of the students he was coaching. The student is a grade 9 girl who had some badminton training back in China, but she’s really still a beginner in terms of the sport. What’s more interesting is that my dad also contacted the parents of another girl who’s around the same age, so that family of three showed up as well. That girl, who just arrived in Canada, has had extensive badminton training since she was very young, and she’s competed in provincial badminton tournaments (for elementary students) back in China. Her fundamental skills are very good, and she has plenty of competition experience as well. All this means that despite being a 13-year-old girl, she had no problems playing with JP’s buddies, who are all grown men. Granted, those guys she played with aren’t all that good (average at best), but it was still fun to see a bunch of grown men getting beat by a short grade 8-9 girl. I didn’t play with her, although JP played and beat her team while partnered up with the his student (who’s still a beginner).

Yesterday was the first day of the Wednesday night badminton session that JP and I registered for at a local community centre. I haven’t played at that particular place for a long time and it’s the first time I registered for a session there. Anyways, the courts at the community centre are pretty decent, with a lot of space between the back lines and the walls. Of course the courts aren’t as good as those in a badminton centre, but they are not too bad for a community centre gym.

Playing in the session is pretty straight forward. JP and I just wrote our names on the sheet and then wait for our turn. They played 15 point rule instead of the 21 point rule I’ve been playing recently, so the game dynamics are a bit different. Our first game was against a mixed doubles pair with who are JP’s acquaintances. We dominated the game and won 15-4. After the win I was feeling pretty good about myself, but this soon changes at the second game. Our second game was against two guys. We sprung out to a 5-1 lead, and then disaster struck. For some reason, I just keep missing the bird or hitting it into the net no matter what I tried. My sudden down turn cost us the game and we lost 8-15. I had a little stomach ache problem earlier in the day so that may have been the cause, but I’m not going to blame my poor showing on that. After the game, JP told me to calm down and try to hit some clears instead of trying to attack constantly. I tried to take his advice to heart and we marched off to our third game. This time our opponents were another mixed pair. They were pretty skilled and stronger than our first opponents. In the first half of the game I was still performing poorly and we fell behind 6-11. At that point of time I knew I needed to turn things around, so I just told myself to stop trying to smash every high shot and hit some clears. Lo and behold that actually started working, and we manage to even the game at 11 a piece. Most of the point we lost were due to my mistakes, but it’s a lot harder to make mistakes when hitting clears. Of course, my performance was still inconsistent at the point and the opponents gained a two point lead 11-13. Once we got the service back though I decided that I was going to go for the win right there. What followed was probably my best performance of the night and we scored four straight points to win the game 15-13. I was making all the shots during this time span, which included a laser-like drive that just blew past our opponents before they realized what happened. That was my shot of the night I think.

After the big comeback win JP and I played two more games, but we won both of them pretty easily since the opponents were weaker and I got my stroke back. Overall last night was a pretty good session and I got some much needed exercise. It’s nice to finally play with another group people since for two months straight I was playing with the same group of people. This badminton session goes until the end of August, so during this time I will play two times per week, which I think is probably as much as I can take haha.