Monday, January 28, 2008

K-Swiss Tournament 2008

This is a review on the performances at the K-Swiss Tournament. The K-Swiss Tournament is different from the Inter-School as it is a knock-out tournament and included teams in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories. We did not face any of the New Territories Teams for Inter-school competition. We have put out 2 Teams

Team A - Long Long, Oscar, Tommy, Louvre, Calvin and Nicholas
Team B - Tony Chow, Chris Wong, Jordan Wong, Brian Lau, Barry (withdrawal)

Team B played in the same group as Shatin College (B) and King's College. In the first match against King's College, Tony Chow easily won the first singles. Jordan was leading 3-0 in his singles before losing 3-6. He lost his focus in the middle of the match and was waving to the crowd in between points. He also changed his winning game and started playing "table tennis" with his opponent. Fortunately, Chris and Brian played a very solid doubles against King's and won their match 6-2. Brian had trouble getting his first serve in, but still managed to hold on to his second service game and the match after dropping his first service game. Chris played extremely well in that match and was hitting many forehand winners. For the second match against Shatin College, Jordan redeemed himself with the way he played against a top junior and lost 2-6. Tony Chow fought valiantly to win 6-4 with 7 breaks of service in an exciting match. In the Doubles, Chris and Brian were already 0-5 down before they realized to concentrate on firing shots on the weaker of the pair. They managed to get to 2-5 before losing 2-6.

Team A started with a walk-over in their group and we did not have high hopes of qualification to begin with as our "stronger" Team B failed to qualify for the Quarter-Finals. In the second match, Louvre played in the first Singles and lost 2-6. Long Long then won his next match in 27 points and levelled the series at 1-1. Tommy and Oscar then won their doubles 6-2, even when Tommy's service was not firing and resorted to under-arm serves. We were then paired with strong group winner Canadian International School, who was so confident of their success that they left their doubles pairing at home. Long Long lost 0-6 and we were heading for exit. Oscar then played in the crucial singles. During the warm-up, Oscar found that his opponent was extremely good was attacking on pacy shots. He decided to slow things down during his match at Centre Court. Somehow Oscar managed to find a way to truimph 6-1 in the reverse Singles. Calvin and Nicholas then walk-overed their doubles opponents. WYK Kowloon then qualified for the Semi-Finals, but had to face the all-conquering Ying Wa College. Our players played well but were outclassed by the top juniors in Hong Kong. However, it was a fantastic achievement to reach the last Four of the competition

There was also strong support and solidarity among Team members. Both A and B Teams were supporting each other. The whole squad of Louvre's team turned up even when they were not playing. Both coaches Ernest and Edmond did a tremendous job in leading and organizing the teams. Charles and I also watched some of the actions in the Tournament. We were pleased by what we saw on and off court. We have also studied the forms of some of our opponents in the Inter-School Competition. Let's concentrate on winnning promotion to Div 1. It is a golden oppotunity as Ying Wa was already edged out by West Island in their group and failed to qualify.

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