USBDF Winter Junior International Championships (12/18-12/20)

This was the 10th anniversary of the USBDF Junior International Championships and the 5th or 6th year that our club has been participating. Needless to say, the competition has grown more and more fierce each year, with more newer and younger international players. However, our team remains strong with good players across all the age categories.

In the three very long days, there were countless thrilling matches that kept all of us sitting at the edge of our seats, clapping our hands til our forearms were sore, and screaming until we almost lost our voices! Unfortunately, I was not able to watch every single game. But of those I saw, the most memorable were as follows:

> U15BS: Yik Hin Wong had an extremely close split game against the #1 seed Ryan Chew, leading third game too, but eventually lost third game 21-19! >_<
> U17BS: Ryan Ke had a very exciting match against Brazil player Jose Salgado. This player had previously taken out the 3/4 seed. Ryan played hard and never gave up.
> U17BS: Chetan Potu put up a good fight against #2 seed Jeffrey Kuo. Chetan played a great game and showed maturity on the court despite being junior to his opponent.
> U11GS: Karen Ma played really well in semi's and final's for U11 girls singles. She was composed and focused and played a very strategic game. Way to go!

I am sure there were many many more good games and I will be sure to add them to the list above. Good job to every single one of you who participated. We see great improvement in many of you and we look forward to the next junior tournament. Congrats to all the winners. Our team won a total of 3 golds, 6 silvers, 7 bronzes, and 6 cons. Results from the tournament as follows:

Angela Lin - U17GD cons
Bryan Chow - U15BD 2nd
Bryce Kan - U11BS semi's, U11BD semi's
Cally Chung - U15GD cons
Chetan Potu - U17BD semi's
Daniel Chow - U17BD semi's
Eric Duong - U9BS 2nd, U9BD champion
Ethan Low - U11BD semi's
Jack Ma - U19BD cons
Justin Ma - U15BD 2nd
Karen Ma - U11GS champion, U11GD 2nd
Madeline Sporkert - U15GD cons
Priscilla Long - U13GS 2nd, U13GD champion
Randy Ma - U19BS 2nd, U17MX semi's
Ryan Ke - U19BD cons
Tiffany Chua - U17MX semi's, U17GD cons

For full tournament details, please click here.

2010 Team Thanksgiving Party (11/27/10)

What does GREAT food and FUN badminton spell out? Answer is, this year's Bintang Team Thanksgiving Party! It was by far the best one yet, with the most impressive food, the most intense funky doubles games (in both the competitive and the recreational flights), and the biggest turnout yet.

With over 50 dishes of food (ranging from meaty meat dishes, to tasteful noodles and rice staples, to colorful fruit and vegetable dishes, to fancy desserts that satisfied our sweet tooth times ten!), our tummies were fully satisfied! The Iron Chef contest on the potluck really made some parents bust out their secret recipes and cooking skills.

We had a record turnout for the traditional funky doubles tournament as well. There were 30 teams in the Pumpkin (recreational flight) and 25 teams in the Turkey (competitive flight) -- that's over 100 players! It was great seeing so many parents wanting to participate, playing hard on the courts, and battling it out to the very last point, in true Bintang spirit! And the coaches did not show any mercy even though they were playing against parents! Geez...we know you guys are good.

Thank you to all those who came to the party. Coach and I had a great time and we hope all of you did as well. It will be quite a challenge to beat this party next year but I am sure we will find a way! Congrats to all the winners and for all the rest, let's start practicing (and maybe training?!) for next year's Thanksgiving tournament!

Turkey Flight
Winner: Huiming Lin (Angela Lin's mom) & Coach Ilian
Runner-up: Danny Chan & Dad
Consolation: Suyi Peng (Justin Ma's mom) & Charlie Yang

Pumpkin Flight
Winner: Lily Wen & Dad
Runner-Up: Anthony Lu & Mom
Consolation: Shu-Shu Hsia & Dad

Iron Chef Contest
Winner: Su Sporkert (Madeline & Erika's mom) for the impressive chocolate fondue with fruits, cakes and donuts

Thank you again to everyone, especially the parents for their participation. A big hand as well to Mr. & Mrs. Luk for all their support and behind-the-scenes work in coordinating the party and to Mr. & Mrs. Sporkert for capturing memories of this great event. We will see you all next year. Please check out the photos here.

Puerto Rico International 2010 (11/4-11/7/10)

Bintang's pro players have been training hard the past month. Puerto Rico Open was the first international tournament for Ilian and Holvy in a long time. This tournament attracted top players from Canada, U.S., Brazil, Peru, and Italy, to name a few.

Topher played men's singles and men's doubles (partner is from Mexico). He made it to semi-finals (SF) in doubles, after beating Daniel Gouw/Arnold Setiadi in QF.

Ilian played men's singles and men's doubles with Holvy. Ilian and Holvy lost men's doubles in QF to a Canadian team. Ilian had to play qualifiers for singles. He won qualifiers and made it to the main draw, where first round he faced a player from Iran (who played in the 2008 Olympics). And Ilian won! In QF round, Ilian played Howard Shu and won. In SF round, he played Wisnnu Putro, an Indonesian playing for Italy. Ilian managed to win the first game, but then his arm was hurting a lot and he couldn't smash or clear, and lost second and third games. He played very well though and made it much further than we had expected! Good job!

Holvy played mixed doubles in addition to men's doubles with Ilian. He and Grace (Yun) Peng upset many seeds. They won their first two rounds easily. In QF, they beat a Canadian pair two games straight. They advanced to SF, where they met the #1 seed Toby Ng/Grace Gao from Canada. Holvy and partner won in two straight sets! Then Holvy and Grace played finals against yet another Canadian pair. It was a close three-set match, but Holvy/Grace stayed strong and they won!!! What a sweet victory and this was the first major tournament for this pair of retirees. ^_^

Congrats to Holvy, Topher, and Ilian for their achievements. Their hard work training is paying off!

2010 Davis Fall Open (10/30-10/31/10)

Davis tournaments are *always* fun and overall a great tournament for our team. This time was no exception and in fact we raked in more trophies than ever before! As usual, our team swept almost all the gold's in singles. But this time, we also took home many gold's in doubles! All of you stayed focused, showed great team spirit, and just played very well. Good job to all of you and especiailly to the winners:

AMS 1st - Ilian Perez
AMS semi - Charlie Yang
BMS 1st - Randy Ma
BMS semi - Chetan Potu, Gavin Chan
BMS cons - Ryan Ke
DMS 1st - Justin Ma
DMS semi - HinHin Wong
DMS cons - Brian Lin
ABWS semi - Priscilla Long
CWS 1st - Angela Lin
CWS 2nd - Cindy Tam
CWS semi - Cally Chung, Hensley Ellefritz
DWS 2nd - Madeline Sporkert
DWS semi - Karen Ma, Lily Wen

AMD 1st - Ilian Perez & Jacky Zhang
CMD 1st - Chetan Potu & Daniel Chow
DMD 1st - Alex Cawit & Danny Chan
ABWD semi - Huong & Stella
CWD 1st - Angela Lin & Tiffany Chua
CWD 2nd - Cally Chung & Partner
CWD cons - Cindy Tam & Anna Hoang
DWD 1st - Hensley Ellefritz & Karina Wong

We showed great team spirit out there. And all of you were amazing! Keep up the *great* work! Keep training hard!

This was Bintang SSF Team's first trophy (Danny and Cally both in doubles):



If you have any pics from the tournament, please let me know!

Yonex New York City Championships (9/17-9/19/10)

Ilian played the 2010 Yonex New York City Championships for the second year. Since he was the men's singles champion in 2009, Yonex USA asked him to play again this year. There were many tough opponents, including Hock Lai Lee and Ajit Umrani. And despite being the winner last year, Ilian was unseeded in the men's singles draw. Ilian flew in to New York Friday and arrived at the CP Badminton Club just in time for his first match. He won and had to play the #2 seed, Ajit, second round. Ilian won in a tight split game and then had to play the 3/4 seed in semifinals. He won in another tight split game and finally had to face Hock in finals. It was yet *another* split game, but Ilian fought it out and defended his title as men's singles champion for the second year in a row! He also won men's doubles with partner Hock.

Great performance and let's see if Ilian can defend his title yet again next year!

Full tournament results can be found here.

Halloween Party (10/23/10)

This was the sixth annual Bintang Team Halloween Party. Unfortunately, the bad weather led to a lower turnout as many of you were sick! >_< Nevertheless, we had a blast with the Dublin gangsta team, the new SSF kids, the old and new Sunnyvale/Campbell members, and all the coaches.

The winners of the costume contest are as follws:
1st - The Cowboy and Harry Potter, Ethan Low & Bryce Kan
2nd - The Ghost and the Pirate, Angela Lin & Tiffany Chua
3rd - The Mini Fighters, Eric Duong & Aaron Low

The winner of the group skit: The Noob Killers (Winky Wong, Christine Wang, Aldridge, Andrew Chan).



And the night wrapped up with the coaches skits. The skits were better and even more entertaining than last year's! Jacky and Topher started off, with a "The Ring" enactment. Topher tried luring the audience to think nothing scary, by checking FB on his laptop, then singing. And finally Jacky "crawled" out from under the table just as the Japanese version of "The Ring" was playing. Quite interesting!

Next was the "Mario Brothers Game, Ping Pong Edition", featuring Minh (as Mario), Holvy (as the dragon in the dungeon), Ryan (as the ping pong opponent), and Nate (as the choreographer and technical leader). As the Mario Brothers video game feature song started, Minh was running getting the mushroom's and flower power. He fought off the dragon and then entered into an incredibly intense ping pong game against Ryan. And, of course, Mario wins. A fun and entertaining performance!

Last was the "Star Wars Gangster Rap, with Bonus Can't Touch This", featuring Coach (as Uncle Owen and Yoda), Ilian (as Luke and the Evil Emperor), and Ricel (as Obiwan Kanobi and Darth Vader). They enact the Star Wars series in mega-abridged format. Of course, Luke defeats Darth Vader in the end, but not before losing his hand in battle. And just as the performance is "done", all three pause, and they start dancing to "Can't Touch This". Definitely entertaining, and a sure sign that Coach's back is getting much better! :)

Everyone enjoyed Mrs. Sporkert's homemade cupcakes while voting for one of the three skits. The winning skit is...The Mario Brothers! Congrats to all the winners and thank you to everyone who joined us for a fun, not too spooky, but kind of violent (group skits), Halloween party! Coach promises a haunted house next year, but only if the costumes are even bigger, better, and crazier than this year's! So start thinking now...

I will post up links to the videos soon.

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.