A story about me and a tournament in China

I am currently on holiday in Nanning, Guanxi province China. I have come here firstly to meet my G/F parents, and partly to play (Train) and cereate some skills in "the beautiful game". I have been very lucky as My G/F mum knows a man who's son was a ex semi-professional ( Trained with province team, but not played for) but is retired now, and is a coach. I have been her for three weeks now, and played everyday since I arrived.

The coach is very understanding, and although he speaks little English (i teach him everday also) my g/f is a very good translator, and I have learnt a lot.

So far I have throughrly enjoyed my time here, and all the people I have played badminton with have been, on the whole very nice. It is good, as all the local entrepeneursgive me their equipment and t-shirts to wear, as everyone looks at me as am the only foreigner here, so good advertising for them, and good for me, as I get free clothes/equipment!

Anyway, I have played in many different places since I have been here, including a fantastic 28 court sports hall, with a dream florr, and lighting that doesnt affect you eyes. I love it here as all the courts are made for badimton, unlike in the uk, in which they are usually nasty concrete floor which are used for basketball, and indoor football, so are dusty and slippy.

Anyway, in this tournament (which this week is a team event, and next week individual) We (as a team) play three group matches, two doubles and one singles. Although my love is singles, I have been playing doubles so far. On the friday We arrived at half 7. When I walked in the door, the whole hall was full of people. There were apparently over 1000 entrants, and more watching (with familiy, friends etc..). I was amazed, I never really play tournaments in UK usually, and especially not of that size! you can imagine me being the only foreigner everyone was looking at me. I was terribly nervous.

As I was playing with my coach, I had a kind of understanding, although as we train singles, I had not played doubles with him much. Luckily, the pair were notvery good, and we won quite easily 15-7 15-3, this was all down to the coach however, as I was so tight, as felt everyone was looking at me, i couldnt swing properly. The singles game was next and we also won that, but as the first two games are the group stage, then we had another tomorrow morning.

The match started at 0830, and we were late, It was again busy, but not as busy as last night. They were better than the first pair last night, and we were not warm in the first game, and we lost it, not sure the score. In the second game it was tight, but my serving was solid if nothing else, but I was still really nervous, so had little chance to loosen up. We won , and went to the decider. Previousley my girlfriend had said that every point counts, as in a tie, the points will be added up. She again told me that before the third game. The first few rallies were tight, as no one wanted to give the game away. Then at 2-1 to us, the opponents, and my partner, changed ends, I was totally confused, but thought there may be some way of deciding it I didnt know, my g/f came on, and said again every point counts, i said I know I know, I am trying, the referee, intervened, as he thought I was getting coaching during the game (not allowed) any way, after we changed ends, we were more consistent, I lost the score, but it was over very quickly. I asked the coach what was happening and I had my esteemed translator say that every point counted, no matter who is serving, then it clicked! We play the third game like table tennis scoring, even if you are recieving you can still score!! In my opinion we were very lucky, as I didnt know that. OUr singles player won again and wewon the second match. This left us with one group match to play.

Inthe final group match I played with a different partner, as Their singles player was very strong, so My coach ( the best player) played singles. The guy was the singles player, and As usual I was nervous, and felt awkward. We lost the first easily, it was difficult as my partner was an out and out singles player,so he blocked all the smashes, and didnt push the shots at the net, but netted. This was picked up by the opponents, and along with my inept play, we lost the second also. This time if we were to win our second doubles would have to win their game too. We won the singles in straight games. In the doubles, we won the first game but lost the second. Ou rdoubles players were much more experienced than the others, and prevailed in the third, we had topped our group, and advanced to the knock out rounds!

At this point, one of my coaches friend brought a newpaper to my g/f and it showed a picture of me!!! preparing to serve, I cannot find the picture on the web, but we have managed to load the story:

http://news.newgx.com.cn/staticpages/20040410/newgx4077e604-172472.html

(for those who read chinese)

I couldnt believe it, I never seen my pisture in paper before! I felt like a celebrirty. hahah


After this match our next match was in the evening, at 2000. I was to play doubles again, with my coach this time. Now previousley Ihad been really nervous, but felt moreat ease before the game, and just told myself that it was just a normal game, and not to worry about people looking at you. I was really fired up, and just smashed anything up in the air, they really felt good, and the opposition found it difficult to get them back deep, and I was trying to hit them steep, as most of the smashes they recieve are flat (as they are smaller. It worked, and we won the first game easy, I think about 15-2/3, the second game I was really confident, and my coach played very well (as usual ) just setting up for me to attack. It was sweet on the final point, as I smashed, the oponent blocked to thenet, I followed up, did a really tight cross court net shot into space, to win the game. Full marks to my coach, as he is very skillful at the net, and worked me the lifts really well. I am hopeless at the net, as have no skill, all I can do is hit hard.

That pair were actually quite good but we played very well. Our singles player yet again won and we were all very happy at getting through to the next round. our second doubles must be really bored watching all the time!! , so we advanced to the Quarter finals, where we play again at 0830, with a potential semi, at 1430, and the final at 2000.

I just felt like writing this as I am really enjoying myself here, and played a very good game this evening, I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing, and I will take a photo of the newpaper article and piture when I get home later in the month.


Will keep you posted on how I do tomorrow!!!

Thanks for reading!

To Kwun: Sorry for wasting band width with thousands of words, but I hope you forgive me, I am telling everyone who plays to join so they can improve their englis, and when I get the t-shirts, I will wear them here when I get back!!
James

 

Just about to go to sleep now, We got the third place play off this afternoon (this mornign was semi final, we lost ) After the match last night someone came up to me and said "da de hao, English hammer!" which I thought was quite amusing. (I hope was in reference to my smash, not my attributes of being big, heavy, and with awkward movement!)

Will let you know how I get on later. I havent seen the people from Vietnam, but it is quite close to Nanning (distance ).

 

Have taken pictures, and when I come back, Iｗｉｌｌ ｆｉｎｄ ｔｈｅ ｔｅｃｈｎｏｌｏｇｙ, ａｎｄ ａｔｔｅｍｐｔ ｔｏ ｕｓｅ ｉｔ ａｎｄ ｐｏｓｔ ｉｔ ｈｅｒｅ. Ｉｔ ｈａｓ １４ ｃｏｕｒｔｓ ｓｉｄｅ ｂｙ ｓｉｄｅ, ｔｈｅｎ ａｎ ａｒｅａ ｔｏ ｓｉｔ ｄｏｗｎ, ａｎｄ ｐｌａｃｅ ｔｏ ｅａｔ/ｄｒｉｎｋ ｉｎ ｔｈｅ ｃｅｎｔｒｅ, ｔｈｅｎ ａｎｏｔｈｅｒ １４ ｃｏｕｒｔｓ ｔｈｅ ｏｔｈｅｒ ｓｉｄｅ. Ｉｔ ｉｓ ｂａｓｉｃａｌｌｙ ａ ｈｕｇｅ ｓｐｏｒｔｓ ｈａｌｌ ｂｕｉｌｔ ｏｎ ｔｏｐ ｏｆ ａ ｆｏｕｒ ｓｔｏｒｙ ｓｈｏｐｐｉｎｇ ｃｏｍｐｌｅｘ.

Ｔｈｅ ｇｕｙ ｗｈｏ ｏｗｎｓ ｉｔ ｈａｓ ｇｉｖｅｎ ｍｅ ｓｏｍｅ ｔ-ｓｈｉｒｔｓ ｔｏ ａｄｖｅｒｔｉｓｅ ｉｔ, ｈｅ ｉｓｎｔ ｔｈａｔ ｇｏｏｄ, ｂｕｔ ｈｅ ｌｏｖｅｓ ｂａｄｍｉｎｔｏｎ, ａｎｄ ｄｅｃｉｄｅｄ ｔｏ ｄｏ ｉｔ, ｓｏ ｈｅ ｃａｎ ｐｌａｙ ｗｈｅｎ ｈｅ ｗａｎｔｓ, ａｎｄ ｍａｋｅ ｍｏｎｅｙ. Ｈｅ ｉｓ ａ ｇｒｅａｔ ｇｕｙ. Ｈｉｓ ｗｉｆｅ ｉｓ ａ ｖｅｒｙ ｇｏｏｄ ｐｌａｙｅｒ ｔｏｏ, Ｉ ｔｈｉｎｋ ｓｈｅ ｍａｙ ｈａｖｅ ｈａｄ ａｎ ｉｎｆｌｕｅｎｃ ｅ ｔｈｅ ｄｅｃｉｓｉｏｎ ｔｏ ｍａｋｅ ｔｈｅ ｈａｌｌ!

 

It was graded for open age, and about five other age categories, from young to over 60.

We were in the open age group, I am not really sure about the number of groups, but we had 4 teams in the group, who we played once eachafter that we played two more games, then a third place play off. We lost, so came fourth, but was very good experience. As I say we got the individual tournament this week coming, so we will see then. I will be playing with my coach he knows most of the pairs we will play in the group stage, as he used to train and play against them when he played seriousley. so we are watching videos of them this week, to analyse there game, an dimprove my weaknesse we found from this weeks play... He takes everything very seriousley..as do I

Pistures will come hopefully early may (I dont get back until end april.)

Keep you posted on the results of this weekends tournament.

 

Dill:

I Hope so! I have trained everyday (sometimes twice) for at least two hours.

At least I feel my fitness has improved. I feel other things have improved too, especially my consistency.

The coach says the things I do wrong are easy to correct. And that I have the advantage that I want to improve, and work hard to improve, and that I focus on what he says, and learn well.

We have been mainly working on technical things, but when I am back in UK I am going to work hard on my fitness, and strength, so I can train harder when I come back at the end of July/early AUgust. Then we will plan for a longer term programme. We have been working only on the 5 weeks at this point, but when I come back, we will look for a much longer scale.


To summarize.........Yes!