Good morning to all, it is now 7.30am and after a good rest, I am ready to write a blog post of yesterday's event while it is still fresh in my mind for sharing purpose.
1. I was up at 5.00am yesterday and I reached the venue at 8.00am. Even though I am one hour early, the car park is full and I was forced to park at some distance away from the venue.
2. Once inside, the venue is already pack and crowded. There are over 300 plus participants in this Team Event. 64 teams of five pax each. All singles matches only.
3. The hall is very big and modern and fully air conditioned. I cannot believe that this venue is a not for profit private school and its operation is fully funded by public donation with little or no help from the government. Even the toilets feels like a decent hotel level in terms of cleanliness and upkeep.
4. There are 32 tables in the main hall for OPEN EVENT with a secondary hall reserved for elementary school students only competition. My team and I made our way to Table 32 and checked-in with the match officials. It is now 8.30pm and my team started our warm-up routine and controlled short driving strokes. We cannot really do power looping strokes as it is very crowded and if the ball flies off, it is very difficult to retrieve the ball amidst the hundreds of legs.
5. Before I go on, I do apologize there is no video recording because the hall is very crowded and if there is recording, it will be obscured by hundreds of people walking around or worse; bumping into the camera and damaging it. So, apologies for no video recording.
6. I participated in the OPEN event where there are U10 players up to 70 years-old something grandpa pipster. There are no rating and it is a FREE for ALL.
7. It is now 9.00am and the organizer announced in the PA for all the participants to gather at the front of the hall, near the podium to witness the officiating of the event. FYI, this is an annual event and this is the 38th times the event has been held. After singing the national anthem and listening to a couple speeches by the CEO of the corporate sponsors ( there is this particular corporate sponsor that was giving out free fried rice and dumplings as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility effort ).
8. 9.30am, the umpire approached the teams in my Group and start the game. I am the weakest player in my group and my job is to go against the strongest player in the opposing team. I have to face three players in three respective team and all three are male youth players; those high-schoolers who trained 6 days a week in a coaching program type. Similar to those that
@Tony's Table Tennis shown in his previous video.
9. I will not describe all three matches because their playing style are similar, that is to say, shake-hand grip two inverted ESN / Tenergy / Dignics rubbers and two wings looping fast attacking style. I mean these kids all go through the same coaching program, hence their style is pretty cookie-cutter.
10. My first game was me acting like a deer in the headlight syndrome. I was stunned and not used to the speed of their attacking pace. I lost as expected with a humiliating 11-1 scoreline. In my usual social club setting, our pace is more subdue, where usually after we serve, we will tend to go into a few cutting / pushing exchange to try to seize the opportunity to open up. And I am used to this pace.
11. But NOOOOOOOO.... these high-schoolers open up at all 3rd ball no matter where the ball land. No matter if I cut or push either to their FH or BH, they will open up and with spin. Even if I can block it, they will be ready with one or two or three or four conter-drives. These kids are relentless. I counted on average I can block like one or two before losing the points. The best I ever did was able to block four of their counter-drives and won a point ( Yay! My best point, wish I had it recorded ).
12. All in all, I did not WIN a single set. Yup I sucked this much. But then, this is to be expected and my personal objective is prevent myself losing under five points. In total I played 3 players with a total of 9 sets. Except for the first two sets where I got a 11-1 and 11-4 scoreline ( deer in headlight syndrome ), the rest of the remainder seven sets I manage to suck a little bit less, with my best scoreline being 12-14 ( CHO-LEH )
13. How did I lose? My receive game is poor. I failed to open up upon their receive and played a passive cut / push of which these high-schoolers are just waiting gleefully for it. They will open up no matter where I push to them, be it their BH or FH. If the ball is short, they will flick it or push long to me, knowing I do not have a consistent open-up skill. I tried several time to open up with my BH, but it went into the net often so I gave up and played it safe, which is a poor option nevertheless.
14. How did I lose not so badly? In another words, how did I get my winning points? Well, I can say my own service earn me some saving grace points. I alternate my serve with short strong backspin with placement as well as fast long to opponent's cross-over point. Some of my blocks did surprise them, as they did not expect this old fat dude to bounce the ball back, not just once, but sometimes twice. The best I did was four blocks in a row.
15. How did my team-mate performed? Let just say we did not make it to the knockout stage. Since this is an OPEN event, I can say this tournament is out of our league. These youngsters are playing at a different level. Nonetheless, it was all in good fun and what a sporting life is all about.
Thank you for your attention. Feel free to ask questions and I will answer as best as I could.
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