2012 Osaka International Challenge

I was lucky enough to use my aeroplan points to book my flight from Hanoi to Osaka but had to go through Seoul, Korea. The plus side to it was traveling in business/first class on ASIANA Airlines which was an amazing experience way better than 1^st class on any North American airline by far. It took a day to make the trip due to a long layover which was spent in the lounge working on homework. From Seoul to Osaka I flew on 747 which I thought was ridiculous for an almost 2 hour flight but the plane was packed and I was ever so thankful not to be back in economy. The Osaka International was April 4-8, 2012.

Upon arriving in Osaka I instantly fell in love with the city, it is such an amazing place and I would go back in a heartbeat. It took an hour and a half of driving from the airport to get into the city and to our hotel. The organizers rented a bus since I wasn’t the only one to come in; part of the Indonesian team came in the same time. I checked into the hotel and then the tournament venue was pretty much right beside the hotel the Mouriguchi City Gym. So I took a walk over there to the venue to check it out and saw some teams practicing. I had a practice time for the following day at 7pm at night after the team managers meeting. When I went to the gym for my practice time I ran into 2 friends that I trained with in China which was amazing and I was so shocked to see them there. I hit with them for about 30 minutes to get use to the facility which was a lot nicer than the one in Vietnam but still was a huge venue. 

With these huge venues the depth perception is what messes me up personally because of where I train in Calgary it is only 32 feet high. These stadium/larger venues have ceilings that are 70+ feet in the air and it messes with my perception if I don’t get to practice in a place like that long enough. Eventually I’m sure Ill adapt and get use to it. The second thing with large venues is there is no sound you cannot hear your own shots to the same extent as in a small club gym. You can hit a huge smash and it sounds like absolutely nothing meaning when your opponent smashes hard you can barely hear the full sound.  

I played a guy from Singapore and it wasn’t a bad match, he was a lot stronger than me and had a very powerful attack. He also out played me at the net, spinning back any net shots that I played against him. His pushes didn’t put me out of position, neither did his clears but it was his smash that did the most damage because of how accurate and powerful it was combined with his flat aggressive drive play. What worked to my advantage were slices though especially on my around the head corner I won most of my points with that shot. Overall not a bad match and a learning experience for sure what the level is like over in Asia. I got to watch matches every day and saw everything from players getting completely destroyed to some of the closest most entertaining games. 

Being in Japan I ended up eating a lot of Sushi, from both the supermarket and from restaurants. As well I enjoyed lots of other kinds of foods too. I was not able to bring myself to have McDonalds after the tournament though; it has been 4 years since I last had a burger from there. I will save that moment when it is truly deserved to eat a burger from a fast food joint. I did a lot of my shopping for food in the supermarket and it worked out to be really cheap to eat while there for the week. 

The days after I was knocked out of the tournament I went browsing around Osaka. I was fortunate enough to visit a Yonex warehouse and see all the products that they had available, as well was fortunate enough to receive quite a lot of Yonex products while in Japan. I was also able to visit Osaka Castle and walk around the surrounding area, spending a good 4 hours doing that and not completely covering the entire area. The day before I left I was able to see one more sight so I went out into the “countryside” taking a 45 minute train ride (switching trains 3 times) to a shrine/temple. I enjoyed that area but got a little scare when it looked like it was going to rain on my parade, fortunate for me it didn’t and I was able to enjoy my last day in Japan before starting to make my long trip back home. 

 

I had to catch my shuttle to the airport at 6am in the morning because I had an early flight out of Osaka back to Hanoi to spend a night and then fly back through Korea to Vancouver and finally Calgary. It took 48 hours from the time I left Osaka to the time that I landed in Calgary. I was fortunate enough to get an upgrade to executive class on my flight from Korea to Vancouver; I was not looking forward to spending that time in economy on such a long flight. The service did not even come close to what I received on ASIANA Airlines though.

Overall my time in Asia was a great experience and I was happy to be able to see the level of play over there. I was happy to be able to have the opportunity to train with local players in both Vietnam and Japan that was truly a unique experience and something that expanded my knowledge of the game. I just need to continue to work towards my goal, to improve become faster, stronger and most of all more consistent.

After those two tournaments my rank went up to the highest it has been to 362 in the world for men’s singles. I know that is not that high but for me it is incredible after not playing badminton that long and working so hard for this. I can only hope to break into the top 300 in the world by the end of 2012 or even higher. As of April 26, 2012 my rank is 382 for men’s singles and that will remain around that area until I play more tournaments in July. My next 2 tournaments will be the US Open Grand Prix Gold and the Canadian Open Grand Prix both in July. I can only hope since its Olympic year and the Olympics are later that month a lot of players will skip over those tournaments and I will be fortunate enough to get main drawed instead of going through qualifications. But that is all for another blog.

2012 CIPUTRA Hanoi Vietnam International Challenge

So recently I spent almost 3 weeks in Asia for international tournaments. I went to Vietnam and Japan with spending some brief time in Korea.

The flight to Vietnam was a long one taking me 24 hours to get there; I had to transfer in Vancouver and in Seoul, Korea. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get an upgrade to executive first on my flight from Vancouver to Seoul so that meant 9 hours in economy class (not the worst I know). I was able to sleep on the plane according to the time in Vietnam as to try and avoid whatever effects of jet lag that I could which did work to my advantage a bit.

The first stop on the tour was to Hanoi, Vietnam for the 2012 Vietnam International Challenge March 26-31. I was originally in qualification with just 1 person above me in qualification but due to some last minute withdrawals I was bumped up to main draw. There was 128 men's singles players present at the tournament. The greater majority were from Asia with a few from Europe (Slovakia, Russia, Italy, etc) and me the only player from the Pan American region.

The tournament started the Monday with qualifications but I didnt have to play a match until Wednesday. I didnt get into Hanoi until Saturday night pretty much Sunday morning though. I was only able to hit in the main stadium hall for 30 minutes of which 10 minutes or so of that was trying to find somebody to have a hit with. After I found somebody it was a different expirence hitting in such a large venue the depth perception was not helped by the giant stadium lights which made it impossible to see the shuttle when looking left or right. 

After practicing at the stadium Sunday I would not be able to play in it again until my match on Wednesday which was not ideal. I met a friend in Vietnam (Quang) and he took me to a local hall to play which was nice I was able to adjust to the shuttle speed and everything. Shuttles at the tournament and playing in general felt a lot heavier and very different than playing in Calgary. Wednesday came around and my match was scheduled to be on the TV court (Court number 2) but the matches were delayed quite a bit so an hour and a half after my match was scheduled to go on the match before me was still on court 2 so they moved my match to court 3.

I played a player 14^th seed from South Africa and it was an interesting game. In the 1^st set I was completely shell shocked I could keep a rally but simply could not win the points. In the 2^nd set I felt a lot better and started to settle a little more into my game playing the net and winning some points there. I felt alright moving and playing the net but anything that went up I didn’t feel comfortable hitting down and attacking that was ultimately my downfall.  

 

After that I was knocked out of the tournament in round of 64, I got to watch all the rest of the matches including finals which was amazing. As well I went out a few more times to play with my friends at the local hall they played at and met even more amazing people. I got to play against a former Vietnam International player as well, she was still very talented. In the mornings there was a training hall and I was invited to train there with the Vietnamese players that were no longer in the tournament that was a great experience.

The food in Vietnam was great, I had Pho of course but there were quite a few cafes on my street which served fruit drinks and food as well. It would cost about $2 Canadian for a meal and $1.50 for a fresh fruit smoothie which was delicious. So I was able to eat all that as well as experienced many unique Vietnamese foods as well when going out with my friends that I made there. 

For some reason the hotel Wi-Fi did not work for me during the day and would only work in the lobby as there was no Wi-Fi in the room’s only LAN cable. I brought only my Toshiba tablet so I could only use Wi-Fi for that. Anytime after the hours of 11pm and 7am the Wi-Fi in the hotel lobby would work for me. So I spent a lot of nights in the lobby after I was knocked out on my tablet catching up with people or doing some school work or simply browsing the internet. The guards got very familiar with me and one night we all sat together watching a soccer match on the TV. Although we didn’t understand each other we all shared the common bond for the love of the game and it was a great time. I also got to watch a lot of badminton on TV both in my room and on the TV in the lobby as well which was incredibly nice. Not many English shows were on but there were a few.

I did get to do some sightseeing in Vietnam; I made it out to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which was only about a 15ish minute walk from my hotel. Walked around that entire area and saw all the government buildings and monuments that were dedicated to Ho Chi Minh. As well walking around the area near my hotel seeing a lot of stuff for sure. I ran into tons of players from the tournament that went exploring through the city and made some friends to browse with and have lunches with (mostly Indonesian and Malaysian players). The weather was nice, it was around 28 degrees Celsius but it didn’t feel hot at all which was both nice and not as nice. I left Calgary which had snow hoping for some sun and heat but can’t complain I was happy for the week without snow.

The time soon came to leave Hanoi, Vietnam and make my way to Osaka, Japan for the Osaka International Challenge. Overall I enjoyed my time in Hanoi, Vietnam the city was great and the people were friendly and amazing. I would go back in a heartbeat. 

One door closes and another opens

Things have been interesting, I know this is predominantly a badminton blog but my personal life does affect my badminton for sure. A relationship that I started in last year has come to an end and that is all simply part of life, I have come to terms with it and am not here to rant about it. There are good times and bad ones, memories will always live on but the heart will move forward. I did not let this down time affect my training and preparations for Asia though; I have been pushing forward for my upcoming tour.

My trip to Asia (Vietnam, Korea, and Japan) is quickly approaching. The draws for the Vietnam International Challenge have come out today (March 20, 2012) and I have made it to main draw. I will play 14th seed from the Republic of South Africa first round. I am looking forward to the match and feel like it will be a great test of my skills and see how all this training has helped my game.

For Osaka International the main and qualifying report came out and as of now I am 8th out of 16 qualifiers competing for the 4 remaining main draw spots. So that will be tough for sure, I am the only Pan American player entered in that tournament. We will see what the final draw holds in store for me.

I have a decent amount of stuff to finish off before catching my flight out to Hanoi Friday morning, catching up with a few people quickly that I have not seen since summer last year, also picking up last minute items that I need for the trip and exchange money. I am excited but a little nervous at the same time for this tour.

1st Quarter of 2012

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog; this is the 1st one for 2012. I have been incredibly busy for the first 2 and a half months of the year so far.

My hand tendon injury from back in November has healed and I can now play how I use to. As well the last tournament that I played was the 2011 Canadian International Challenge just because of my hand and as well due to time. I have been kept busy with school, training and work that I don’t have time to play any of the local provincial tournaments. I cannot take the time off work since I will need the money to travel to tournaments.

Training has been going good, noticing slight improvements which are always a good thing and I am not getting turned off by that but am keeping myself motivated and pushing forward. Injuries for me and few and far in-between I have recently pulled my right external oblique as well as my right transverse abdominal muscle. That happened on Thursday March 8 and it is now Monday March 12. The pain has gone but it is still “tender” so to speak and I can feel some pull and strain when stretching to the side. I have been able to work out which is good but as for actually training full out we will see tomorrow.

I leave Calgary March 23, 2012 for Asia to play in 2 international challenges. The first stop will be from Calgary to Hanoi, Vietnam for the Vietnam International Challenge. I will spend almost a week there before going to Korea for a few days and then off to Osaka, Japan for the Osaka International Challenge for 4 days. In total I will be gone for 17 days. I will be passing through the Incheon International Airport in South Korea 6 times this trip.

As of right now I’m seeded 5th in Qualifications for the Vietnam International Challenge. If 5 people above me withdraw I will make it into main draw simply based on that. Else will have to fight through the other 63 qualifiers for one of 8 remaining spots in the main draw.

That is all the updates for now more will follow from Asia or before leaving as well.

2011 Year in Review

2011 was a year that saw a lot happen for me. Both good and bad stuff but the scales are tipped more towards the good.

So starting off at what seems ages ago for the beginning of 2011 not much was happening was in school and still training hard for badminton. New years had just passed and had made my New Year’s resolutions as well as set my goals for 2011. January, February, and Match saw me playing a lot of local provincial tournaments in Alberta. Come April that is when I went out to play Internationals once again with the Peru International. That was a good tournament with a win in singles for me and a very close doubles game where I partnered with a top Canadian mixed player Toby Ng who is on track to go to the Olympics with his mixed partner. Originally I was to go to Osaka for the Osaka International but the Tsunami hit Japan and flights into Japan at the time were not happening so I had to find another tournament to attend. I will however be heading to Osaka in 2012 for the tournament which will be nice for sure.


Peru International

May saw junior nationals and I played in u23 representing Alberta, the tournament was held at the Richmond Olympic Oval in Vancouver. I had played there in 2010 when I played the Canadian Open. This time was still not as pleasant as the first time. Large venue, trouble seeing and drafts made things interesting and is just something that needs to become second nature with me when I start to play in these large venues. All in all though it was a great time and I had fun playing junior nationals.

Shortly after that was my birthday and summer vacation for 2011 which all seems to have happened so fast. I didn’t do anything special for my birthday I never really do I will go out for dinner with people or see people and that’s about it. I got to see a good amount of my friends in the months of May and June which was and is always a nice thing. I did spend a lot of time trying to get on court as much as I could though due to playing the US Open in July and going to China in July/August. With this year (May 2011 to May 2012) being Olympic qualification year the tournaments are attracting a lot of top players from all over the world.

US Open wasn’t too bad I got to see 3 really good friends who live down in the LA/San Diego area which is always nice. I saw some of the top players in the world, from Bao Chunlai, Tien Minh Nguyen, Sho Sasaki, to former Olympic gold medalist Taufik Hidayat. That was a treat to watch them play and be in their presence. After US Open I flew back to Calgary for 1 day and then left to China to train for over a month there.


US Open

I will always love going to mainland China, I simply love it there everything about it the culture the city everything. I spend my time in Nanning and will always go back to that city it is my second home you could say haha. I had an amazing time in China, made a lot of new friends and will go back again in the future. I won’t be going back in 2012 but may try and go back to train there in 2013 for sure.


China Training Group


In a Chinese Museum

After China I came back to Calgary for a little over a week and a half and then I went off to the Caribbean mainly Barbados and Trinidad as well as some other locations for tournaments. Jet lag and 45 days of training hard had taken a toll on my body and it was not happy with me at that point. The time spent down there was amazing I got to see old friends that I had not seen in a year and made even more new friends.


CAREBACO International


Eating in Barbados

After my time down there it was time to come back home and go to school yet another semester, I take 3 courses a semester because I am training daily and working on top of that. I want to make sure I can do great in the courses I take but also try and focus on my badminton as much as I can. I didn’t play any local tournaments after that because I really wanted to focus on training and improve and get better. I have only been training/playing badminton for just about 5 years now total and I am happy where I have gotten but I know that I have a lot of catching up and improving to do. I really want to take this as far as I can and well ultimately that will conclude with an Olympic run in 2016. That’s 5 years from now and I will work as hard as I can and want to see what I can do and accomplish in that time. If I don’t make it to that point I would like to at least have a ranking of being in the top 100 in the world at some point in my career.

Currently finishing off 2011 I am ranked 407 in the world as of Thursday December 29, 2011 and the week before December 22 I was ranked 400 in the world for Men’s Singles. My goal for 2012 is to finish in the top 250 in the world and if I can play a few more tournaments than the 4 I have lined up already then I would like to finish in the top 200 in the world.



The next international that I played came in November which was the Miami International down in well Miami. That was fantastic to go down there and I was feeling great I played a singles game against an amazing player from the states and it wasn’t bad I was seeing improvements in my game and happy with my play. I also played mixed with my mixed partner and we ended up losing to a tough US pair. The worst moment of my year happened at that point. The second last point of my last mixed match I played a simple backhand push and then out of nowhere I felt a sharp pain rip through my hand I couldn’t even hold onto the racquet at that point I didn’t know what I had done and had to return serve right after that. We ended up losing that match but I still had to travel home in that condition and let me say it was hell. My hand was pretty much useless I couldn’t do anything with it couldn’t hold anything and even just holding it still it killed.


Men's singles match


Men's singles match

When I got back to Calgary I went to physiotherapy as well as doctors to see what had happened and after X-rays and ultrasounds they came to the conclusion that I had stretched out (almost ripped) 3 of the tendons in my hand. The tendons that ran through the pinkie, ring finger, and middle finger of my right hand which is also my racquet hand. This was devastating for me this meant that I couldn’t train or even play badminton for a while. That while turned out to be 3 weeks before I could hold a racquet again and when I did that the only thing I could do was hit net shots that slowly progressed into being able to hit drops and then clears. Now about 6 weeks after all that the tendons are still healing its the one that runs from my wrist into my pinkie that is taking the longest to heal. I can hit most shots now with the exception of backhands and lifts but within another month everything should be as good as new.

With that happening it saw me doing a TON of footwork pretty much every day I would go to training and just do footwork for the 2 hours and then fitness and leg weights on my own time. I can finally start to work out my upper body again but slowly. All in all though I am happy that I was able to do all that footwork, I am trying to make sure to do that daily on top of training because I feel that it has helped my game. Because of my inability to hit a backhand now I have had to make sure I am quick enough to get into the backhand corner and hit an around the head, I just now instinctively go for an around the head and I feel that is a great step forward in my game so through tragedy came something good.

There was one more international that I played for the year and that would be the last one of 2011. It was the 2011 Canadian International which was all the way out in Moncton, New Brunswick. My hand had not fully healed and I couldn’t hit smashes, backhands, lifts or drives even. It was going to be tough but I knew that I could get into main draw and that was a decent chunk of points that would be useful in playing my tournaments next year. I was drawn against the 5th seed 1st round and it was tough not being to hit many shots, even trying to hit a crosscourt clear was painful and wasn’t going to happen. That tournament passed and that leaves us here at the end of the year where I am writing up a year in reflection one day before New Years.


Men's singles match

Because I have some time it being Christmas break and all with not much training I decided to finally go and get my tattoo done. I choose to get something incredibly meaningful to me and I went with the phrase “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” but I got it done in Chinese characters going down my back. 有志者，事竟成 literally means “if a person has ambition, things will be accomplished” and that is very meaningful to me. I am a determined individual and I am going to put all I have into badminton and go as far as I can with it. So now in the family both I and my mom have tattoos, my dad is the odd one out without one haha.


Right after the tattoo was inked


Once the bandages came off, the final product

So that was 2011 in a nut shell, from badminton to my love life and everything in-between. 2012 is right around the corner and I already have 4 tournaments lined up (Vietnam and Osaka Internationals, US Open and Canadian Open) so we will see how those all go. I have my Elite status with Air Canada now which means upgrade credits which means executive class to Asia when I travel. 2011 through the highs and lows you have been an interesting year and I can’t wait to experience 2012 in its entirety.

Goodbye 2011 hello 2012.

2011 Canadian International Challenge

This was my last International tournament of 2011 and it was the Canadian International Challenge out in Moncton, New Brunswick December 12-17th but I was out there December 11-15th. This tournament is my last of the year and counts towards Olympic qualification points so it attracted a decent amount of people. For this tournament I was up against 5th seed Stephan Wojcikiewicz of Canada 1st round.


Tournament Venue.

The good news was that I could hold a racquet again and even play some simple shots, clears, drops, forehand lifts, etc. The bad news was I could not constantly smash, play backhands, hit drives or play backhand lifts effectively due to no strength in my hands tendons. Playing against such an amazing talented player as Stephan proved incredibly hard and something that I was not able to do well. I played as hard as I could with the shots that I could hit but it was just near impossible to win points against him. I ended up getting crushed but am happy with how things went and know even more what to work on for the next year. I did receive a decent amount of points for a 1st round loss still which will boost my world ranking in the next week to somewhere around 400th in the world.


Rock Tape provided basic support but didn't help the 3 tendons in my hand too much =(

Clip of Me Vs. Stephan Wojcikiewicz [5]
Match Clip

I would like to achieve better tournament results in 2012 and will be working hard to do that. I am happy with where I have gotten in playing/training badminton for the past 4 and a half years. There is still a huge gap that I need to close with the players that have been playing/training for at least 10 years and started when they were young. We will see what 2012 has in store for me what tournaments I will play and how the year will pan out for me. I will finish off Christmas break and 2011/ beginning of 2012 doing footwork every day alternating between no weight vest and a weight vest. This will allow my hand to heal further and hopefully be ready in January when group training starts back up.

Until then I have some finals to write one Friday (tomorrow) and Monday December 19th. And will probably post a year in reflection blog, well I will try to do my best to post one up. A lot of great things have happened this year as well a lot of bad things too, but will dwell into that later.

Memory Lane

Traveling down memory lane
Reminiscing through all that time
Traveling down memory lane
It is a joy, truly one of a kind.