Summer in Reflection

So it has been a long time since I have published a blog about what's happening. I have been traveling a lot this summer all through Canada and the USA as well as over to Asia and down to that Caribbean. When I was in China the “great firewall of China” had the vast majority of sites I frequent blocked including my blog.

Starting off after playing in Peru and junior & u23 Canadian nationals i had some time before i went to China for training. That time was primarly spent working on fitness and as much on court stuff as i could. I wanted to make sure i would be fit enough to train in Asia. Right before China i had to play the US Open which is a grand prix gold tournament. I was in qualifications again this year but there was only 16 spots in qualifiers. I played an opponent from Brazil and he got the better of me, he played very well and won that match. So coming off of that i was more than happy to be jetting off to Asia for training. I spent a total of 2 and a half days in LA (technically Orange County) and then flew back to Calgary. I then spent 13 hours in Calgary before flying to Hong Kong and then into Nanning China which took me around 28 hours with stopovers and waits in Vancouver and Hong Kong. When I got into my room it was around 11:30pm and I was to train 8am the next day.


2011 Canadian Junior and u23 Nationals, Team Alberta


2011 US Open Grand Prix Gold, during my men's singles match

I will write a completely separate blog entry about China and that will come later. Right now is more about the summer as a whole.

So I spent a whole month and a bit in China training and then started my flight back to Canada. That required spending a night in Hong Kong and then flying out to Vancouver then Calgary the following day. I can officially say that the 11 and a half hour flights from Asia are killer on my body. The fact that I was there for so long, all the traveling, and the amount of training that I did there simply destroyed my body.


2011 Training in China with the GuangXi Provincial Team

When I arrived back in Canada I was only to spend 8 days in Calgary but 3 of those would be playing in the Alberta open which is part of the national circuit. In hindsight that was a bad idea I had some alright games. My body had no idea what was happening and simply didn't want to move or listen to my mind. After playing the tournament and finishing Saturday afternoon with a loss in singles and doubles to the eventual winners I was leaving again Sunday night/Monday morning at 1am.

This time I would be flying down to Barbados for the 2011 CAREBACO international. This was tough with everything that I had gone through recently all the traveling and tired body. I did not take a proper rest after China to allow my body to recuperate and be happy with me again.

Flying into Barbados was good and I can't be mad with the tournament, its rough to have to play 1st and 2nd seeds in my draws but those are challenges that I welcome. In singles I played an older player and was not able to find my bearings, the stadium felt foreign and I did not feel comfortable hitting in there at all. Height of the venue was an issue with me as I messed with my timing. But these are not excuses at all. I am happy with how I played and learned from the expirence. Doubles and mixed were alright, tough matches and 1st time playing with either partner so there was an adjustment period.







I was in Barbados for 7 days more or less but was occupied with the tournament for 4 and a half of those days. Come Friday night though thats when my fun began. I enjoyed the nightlife in Barbados and it was a fun expirence and something long overdue. Just to relax and hang out with friends both old and new. The Beach had been taunting me all week and finally I dove into its beautiful blue waters, I did however go for a run on the beach every morning just to make sure I had some exercise.



After finishing in Barbados I made my way over to Trinidad which was just an hour flight away. I was to finally have my 1st vacation in a long long time. I spent a total of 8 days in Trinidad and it was a nice relaxing time. The heat was killer though and I was happy when it was a low of +23 degrees for the night.

That was the summer of 2011 in a nut shell; those were the major trips that I took this summer. There were a lot of weekends and time that I spent in other parts of Canada and the USA. A weekend to 5 days in Vancouver, a week in Montreal, Boston, and surrounding areas. Now that September is more than half way done focus has been on training and school as well as work. The next big tournament will be Miami Pan Am International in November. That’s all for now but I will have more posts about China as well as other things happening. I learned a lot, experienced a lot, and felt great about everything that happened regardless of the outcome.

US Open GPG and China Training Camp

So it has been a while since I have put up a blog post. I have been busy training. The trip to Indonesia got scrapped because the airfare was to expensive and did not justify the trip. I am instead going back to China to train again in Nanning with the provincial team there. The last time I was in China(Nanning) was in 2009 so it will be awesome to go back and see it again. Hopefully to see some familiar faces too.

Before I set foot in China though I will be playing in the 2011 US Open Grand Prix Gold tournament down in Orange County (LA) at OCBC. The Tournament is July 11-16 but I will only be there July 10-12 as I fly out to Hong Kong on July 13th. This being Olympic qualification year the tournament has drawn out some huge names from Taufik again but this time others such as Chen Jin, Bao Chun Li, Boonsak Posonna, Tain Min Nguyen, and even Lee Young Dae who's competing in the doubles and mixed events.
I will only be competing in the mens singles event but am in qualifications once again due to world ranking not being high enough. There are 16 players in qualifications fighting for 8 spots in main draw. I have been drawn against Houng Nam Nguyen of Vietnam who's also the 3rd seed in qualifications.



Right after I play US Open I will fly back to Calgary for about 12 hours and then will start my long trek to China. That is what my summer has in store for me, for the time being I have but only 1 more day to spend in Calgary which will be spent running errands and packing.

Once back from China I will be spending around 10 days in Calgary before heading off to Barbados for the carabaco international (individual event) as I'm not a part of the team event. Then off to Trinidad and finishing off with the Guatemala international in September. If I can stay longer I would play the Brazil international but that would mean missing 2 and a half weeks of school which would not be good.

2011 XVI Peru International Overview

*I know this is a little late, I have been really busy latley and found the time to sit down and write this up.*

So I traveled to the 2011 XVI Peru International Challange April 13-17 this year. I was put into qualifications for mend singles because my world ranking was not high enough. My flight into Peru was a long one, I left Calgary the Wednesday morning at 10am and didn't get into Lima, Peru until 12:30am Thursday morning. By the time I got to my dorm room at Club de Regatas and into bed it was 3:30am. I had my singles match at 9am the next morning. Needless to say I did get a decent sleep only waking up once in the night. The next morning I awoke at 8:15 ate and got ready they walked over to the venue for my match.




So I was in qualification B which consisted of 6 players. The first round I played a player from chili. Because I arrived so early that morning I was unable to have a hit in the club so my warm-up was my first time hitting there. The venue wasn't bad at all though I didn't have any trouble seeing the shuttle or with height of the roof. That match went well with the final score being 21-8, 21-12 in my favor. The next match that I had was against a player from Mexico, that was a different story though. I lost that match 15-21, 16-21 but am happy to am extent with how I played. It was a flat game for the most part something which I have recently started to work more and more on in my singles play. Anytime I was able to hit down I was able to win the rallies but anytime we played flat for a while things got interesting. Overall the singles portion of the tournament was good and I'm happy with how I played. I can see improvements in my game but still much to work on.




Doubles was next and I partnered with Toby Ng of Canada for that. We had to qualify against a pair from Mexico. Unfortunately I have never really trained for doubles so the fast and flat style associated with doubles is quite foreign to me. I will get put under into pressure situations that shouldn't happen and am unsure at times what shots to play. But I was a little nervous partnering with such an amazing player like Toby, he was kind about it. That doubles match was a close one with the Mexican pair coming out the victor 21-19, 21-19. So after that match it marked the end of my tournament but I still had one more day in Peru before I headed back home to Canada to finish off the exams I couldn't get deferred.




The next day I was able to relax and have a bit of a vacation for a change. I ended up watching some of the first round matches and there were some great ones on. After that I ended up spending around 5 hours on the beach sitting and reading my book with a little bit of tanning here and there. The water was pretty cold but I did go for a dip in the ocean. My day came to an end by watching a wonderful sunset and then I headed back to my dorm room to pack and wait to go to the airport. My flight left Lima at 2am so I was picked up to head to the airport at 11pm. We detoured a little through Lima and got to see a little of the night life in the city but that's the most that I saw of Lima the entire trip. Both landing and leaving lima was in the early am hours so I was unable to see any of the landscape or anything, well another time.






And thus an end to my trip to Lima, Peru had come to and end and as I border my flight I had a sense of accomplishment leaving the country and tournament.

2011 XVI Peru International Challenge

The draws for the Peru International Challenge came out on Wednesday April 6, 2011 and this is a look at them.

So for singles the main draw is sized to 32 people. That means that there is 8 qualification spots and because my world ranking is not high enough I’m in qualification for singles. I’m in group A qualification with 5 other people, that means that I would have to win 3 matches just to get into main draw. The top seed in my qualification is Matthew Fogarty from USA he’s on the top half and I’m on the bottom half. First I’m up against a guy from Chile and we will see how that goes. If there is a victory there then I would play a guy from Mexico and then whichever of the 3 guys on the top half make it to the qualifications final.



In doubles I am playing with a Canadian player by the name of Toby Ng, were both from Calgary and he trains at the Calgary winter club where as I train at the Glencoe Club. I haven’t played with him before and we are in doubles qualification against one other pair. The pair were playing against consists of a guy from Guatemala and a guy from France. If we win that one then we will be in the main draw for doubles.



All the qualification matches are to take place on the Thursday of the tournament with the main draw starting Friday. So as you can see that would be a lot of matches before the tournament. I know that for my singles qualification who ever qualifies gets to play Kevin Cordon, the 2nd seed of the tournament, first round in main draw. And for doubles whoever qualifies from our qualification gets to play 7/8 seed from Italy first round.

I’m defiantly looking forward to some great matches and to test out and see how all this training has gone for me. I will do my best to remember what Ardy has told me and yelled at me for and try to make the best of this tournament. The plus side is that the 920 points that I loose from the Atwater International (it’s been 12 months in May since that tournament) will be replaced by what points I get here. The disadvantage is that it might not be as many points meaning that my world ranking in singles will fall lower making it harder to get main draw in tournaments that have so many people signed up.

Will do my best to keep an update throughout the tournament, until then I have 5 more days in Calgary and 2 finals to write on Tuesday the day before I leave.

Off to south America

So I won't be attending the 2011 Osaka International due to what happened over in Japan earlier this month. I will now be attending the 2011 Peru international challenge which is taking place April 14-17.

There are 75 guys signed up for men's singles with only 32 spots in main draw. This means that there will be either 4 or 8 qualifier spots made available so either 24 or 28 of the guys will get into main draw based on the current world ranking. The rest of the players (including me) will have to play 3-4 matches in qualifiers to obtain a spot in main draw.

This will be another great experience for sure. The only downside is i will only be in Lima,Peru for 2 days which will be taken up by the tournament. As well it will take a full day of travel to get there and a full night of travel to get back. Not to long after this tournament at the end of May I will be flying off to Asia to train in Indonesia for a month. The draws will come out soon for the tournament so I will most likely post them up here when they do.

So right now my schedule is just trying to prepare for this tournament. Its a big one but there will be many more like this in the future for me, I can only hope anyways. The biggest thing that is going to hamper my play will be unforced errors, and consistency under pressure so I have been training those for the past while and we will see how it goes in the tournament.

A New Start

It has been a while since I have used this site; I am now going to start up blogging as regularly as I can. I’ll talk about my travels to tournaments and as well of training and all other aspects of life.

I have been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to be a “normal” person as I like to call it. I have seen friends here and there but it’s usually just the passing by hi and a quick 5 minute (ok that’s being optimistic) conversation about how life is going. Then I have to run off to either one of the few classes I have or off to the club for training. Training takes up the greater majority of my day with minimum 2 hours on court a day (ranges from 2-4 hours) and then another hour in the gym for weights and one more hour for fitness/cardio type workout. On top of that there are 1-3 hours of school depending on the day and then 2-3 hours of work coaching as well depending on the day.

I’m not complaining about it, I know that I choose this and I have my goals that I want to meet. I would like to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth games in Glasgow, Scotland. After that I would potentially like to try and qualify for the 2016 Olympics. That is 3 and 5 years away from now but it will all be determined by what I do today and tomorrow, etc. To get me one step closer to my goals I will be traveling to Asia once again this summer to train there for a couple of months. My coach (Ardy Wiranata, 1992 Olympic silver medalist and winner of countless other prestigious titles) was able to arrange for me to train in Indonesia.

To facilitate all this I will be playing more internationals in the coming years and this summer as well. The current line up for 2011 is as follows, how closely I will be able to follow it is unsure yet.

April 6-10, 2011: Osaka International Challenge (as long as it’s still on)
July 12-16 2011: US Open Grand Prix Gold
July 19-24 2011: Canadian Open Grand Prix
August 31-September 3 2011: Carebaco International
September 8-11 2011: Cuscatlan Open International
November 9-12 2011: XIII Miami International
December 13-17 2011: Canadian International Challenge

It is a big list of tournaments and will be a tough year as well since starting in May of 2011 it is Olympic qualification period for the 2012 London games. That means that there will be a lot of big names making it out to tournaments to boost their world ranking. The only thing that will keep me back is funding which is why I am always looking for sponsors but it’s a circle of you need results to get sponsored but need money to go to tournaments to get the results. So for the time being we will see how this goes, that’s the tentative schedule though.

So that’s the start of everything, As of Thursday March 10, 2011 I am ranked 554 in the world for men’s singles. My goal for the end of the 2011 year is to be ranked in the top 200 in the world. Well it all starts here so I will keep this updated as best I can with everything that is happening.