Yonex Puccini Texas Championships (9/4-9/6)

Over the Labor Day Weekend, Bintang's coaches/pro players and a few students flew to Dallas for the Yonex Puccini Open. It was unsurprisingly hot and humid in Texas though the gym was quite impressive and the intensity of the games was surely over 100 degrees! There was a special visitor who participated in the tournament -- Chetan Anand, India's number one men's singles player!

Our team played very well. There were exciting matches throughout the weekend. Here is a brief recap of some of the most memorable games:

> Minh played Hock Lai Lee in semi-finals. For both the first and second games, at the 11-point interval, Minh was winning by a huge margin (i.e. first game was 11-1). But knowing that he does not have as much stamina as Hock, Minh took it easy and waitied for Hock to make the mistakes, so the scores on both games ended up being close. In the end, Minh still won the game in two sets. Quite impressive! In finals, Minh faced Chetan Anand. Because he played his singles semi-finals match and his men's doubles semi-finals and finals matches all prior to this game on the same day, he was *dead* tired! More conditioning, Minh. ^_^

> In men's doubles, Ilian and Jacky made it to semifinals but lost to Bob and Raj. On the other side of the draw, Holvy and Minh beat Vincent and Sameer. Finals was an exciting three set match. Minh and Holvy won the first game 21-12, then fought neck to neck second game but lost 20-22, and alas lost third game 16-21.

> In mixed doubles, Ilian and Yee, Jacky and Rong, and Holvy and Grace all paired up. Ilian and Yee took out the number two seed, Bob Malaythong and Paula O'Banana, in quaterfinals in a close three-set match. Then Ilian and Yee faced Jacky and Rong in semi-finals and prevailed in another exciting three-set match. On the other side of the draw, Holvy and Grace took out Hock Lai Lee and Priscilla Lun in two games in quarterfinals. Then they had a close match against Raju Rai and Jamie Subhandi but pulled out ahead. In finals, Holvy and Grace prevailed over Ilian and Yee.

Final results:
Open Men's Singles 2nd - Minh Nguyen
Open Men's Doubles 2nd - Minh Nguyen & Holvy de Pauw
Open Men's Doubles Semi's - Ilian Perez & Jacky Zhang
Open Mixed Doubles 1st - Holvy de Pauw & Grace Yun
Open Mixed Doubles 2nd - Ilian Perez & Yee Theng Lim
Open Mixed Doubles Semi's - Jacky Zhang & Rong Bo
B Men's Singles 1st - Ron Muradia
B Men's Singles 2nd - Gavin Chan
B Men's Doubles 1st - Ron Muradia & Gavin Chan
U19 Boy's Singles 2nd - Gavin Chan
U19 Boy's Doubles 1st - Gavin Chan & Abhay Quareshi

Great job team! You guys show us how well-rounded you are as players. :)

Full tournament results can be found here.