Defending B Flight Champions!

It’s been about a year since Frank and I played in the Google vs. Yahoo! Badminton tournament and took the B flight trophy home. Since then, we have barely had the time to play any badminton which used to be a weekly occurrence. With Frank and his new Dream Dinners business, new wife and me with school, Ava and new journeys, we haven’t played any badminton at all. Nonetheless we weren’t going to miss out on the Google Badminton tournament. It was a chance to decompress from the stressful lives we have been leading to do something that we love to do. Rusty and out of shape, our game plan was not to sweat the mistakes and just have fun. We were also planning to look good in the debut of our custom made jerseys.

The day did not start well for me as I discovered that I was playing singles though I did not sign up to do so. I haven’t played singles since 1996 and was in no shape or form to play. I guess I needed the workout but did not expect to win and it was a self fulfilling prophecy. Ironically, my first opponent was one of the pair that stole the B flight doubles championship from Long and I about 2 years ago in this very tournament. I lost both singles games as expected and Frank pulled a great game 1 and lost in his second game as well.

Due to the low amount of players they merged the A – B Doubles flights together. We did not expect to advance on the A flight ladder and lost the first matchup and ended up on the consolation ladder which was at the B level. Frank and I played the first game with many unforced errors but we still found a way to pull out a win. We even played some fun games in between to pass the time. Our final matchup was against my original singles opponent and the guy who took the championship away from me 2 tournaments ago. The only difference was that his partner was upgraded and well so was mine. Frank and I knew we were in for the long haul and it was not going to be an easy win.

Then it happened. That magical moment when the stars align and everything is working at maximum efficiency. Like the moment when you say I do, see the birth of your child when you finally get that economics problem you’ve been stuck on. At last year’s tournament as well as this one we found “our zone.” The zone is like a game breaker in NBA Street, or the turbo button in a racing game; except this is the real deal. This is when we both want to win so badly, that our heart, passion, spirit, desire turn us into execution machines. Though not perfect, we played at a level much higher that what we should have been playing at given how little we’ve practiced.

Our drops were crisp with a punch, counter punch and an impossible cross court drop. The drives were targeted at the body of the opponent with speed and accuracy and repeated over and over again. The power smashes were relentless and placed on the edges of the court or through unimaginable holes in the defence. The serves usually a weakness were aced on the line, everything flowed and was perfect. So the vision of having fun and not sweating the mistakes, well just didn’t apply to this game. I for one was tired of losing that day and this game was a must win.

We pulled together and in holding the lead at lucky 28 we got nervous and allowed our opponent to slowly catch up. We huddled and said to each other to calm down and get the last scores we need and we took the game.

And the funniest part of this ordeal? We didn’t even know that was the final game. =) Ignorance is bliss I say, great game Frank, here’s to you partner! Let’s make the zone a consistent occurrence!

Left and Above: Alan and Franks champion jerseys custom made in Bangkok Thailand.