Spring Davis Open 2010 (4/24-4/25)

Great job to Team Bintang for yet another successful showing at the 2010 Spring Davis Open! With participants from Campbell, Dublin, and Sunnyvale teams as well as our pro players, our team nearly swept all the singles titles and took home a handful of the doubles titles as well. This was a huge tournament with most of the C and D draws over 64 big and high school/college students from all over present.

Coach, Topher, Minh, Holvy, Jacky, and Nate were all hard at work going around actively watching the team play. We thank them for their great efforts! ^_^ Here is a recap of the results:

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A FLIGHT

AMS 1st - Jacky Zhang

AMS 2nd - Topher Flores

ABWS 1st - Joyce Lee

AMD 1st - Holvy de Pauw/Minh Nguyen

AMD 2nd - Jacky Zhang/Topher Flores

AWD 2nd - Stella Chun/Hanh Nguyen*

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B FLIGHT

BMS 1st - Francis Yao

BMS 2nd - Jack Ma

BMS semi's - Martin Hung

BWD 1st - Joyce Lee/Tiffany Chua

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C FLIGHT

CMS 1st - Derek Chao

CMS semi's - Bryan Chow

CWS semi's - Hensley Ellefritz

CMD 1st - Francis Yao/Daniel Chow

CMD 2nd - Derek Chao/Ryan Ke

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D FLIGHT

DMS 2nd - Justin Ma

DMS semi's - James Wang

DMS semi's - Johnny Le

DWS cons - Madeline Sporkert

DMD 2nd - Matt Yim/Dung Bui

DMX 2nd - Jason Guanlao/Hensley Ellefritz

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*denotes player not from club

Again, a big hand to all those who won! Everyone has improved tremendously, even the little juniors. We hope everyone had a great time and let's keep practicing hard!

Welcome Holvy and Jacky!

We welcome Holvy de Pauw and Jacky (Fan) Zhang to our pro player team! Holvy will be primarily at Bintang Campbell and Jacky will be mainly at Bintang Sunnyvale. They are both great players and we look forward to sweeping men's categories at local and national tournaments!

Holvy de Pauw - Formerly on the Indonesia National Team and later was recruited to the Germany and Switzerland National teams. Holvy was one of the top-rising junior players on the Indonesia team with fans from all over! His major wins include 2001 Boys Singles Champion at the Indonesia National Championships, 2005 Croatian International Men's Singles Champion, and 2008 Wilson MIT Boston Open Men's Singles Winner.

Jacky (Fan) Zhang - Formerly on the China National Youth Team, Jacky is notably one of the top local men's singles players. His achievements include 2008 and 2009 Bay Area Open Men's Singles Champion, 2009 Bay Area Open Men's Doubles Champion, and 2009 Dave Freeman Open Men's Doubles Champion.

2010 Mid-Atlantic Classic (3/26-3/28)

A USAB sanctioned one-star tournament, the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Classic was held in Philadelphia the last weekend of March. Being that it was so far away, only Minh and Phu participated. It was an exciting tournament for them, as they met and played against many new faces. There are a lot of strong players in the East Coast too that they normally do not get the chance to play with! Unfortunately, the tournament was constantly behind schedule and Phu/Minh ended up being at the gym from 10am to 12am!

Minh had fairly smooth games that he was able to win in two sets all the way up to finals. The finals match was against ex-Cuban national player Ilian Perez. Minh secured his victory in three sets, to become the men's singles champion!

On the men's doubles side, Minh and Phu again met many new players and very much enjoyed their games. Semi-finals was a close, tough match against current top US doubles players Vincent/Sameer. Minh and Phu played well and stayed focus, pulling a 21-18 win in the third set. Finals proved to be tougher though and they just didn't have the spark they had the previous day, losing to Ajit/Sunil.

Overall, it was a great experience but surely nothing beats California weather and California badminton facilities! ^_^

2010 Dave Freeman Open (2/26-2/28)

A USAB sanctioned two-star tournament, the 2010 Dave Freeman Open was held at San Diego's Balboa Park the last weekend of February. The usual West Coast top U.S. contenders were mostly there, making it a familiar scene though in a different facility. Bintang's pro players participated in this tournament and had a good showing, although half of them were sick throughout the trip. :[

Minh had an exciting semi-finals match against Hock Lai Lee, the winner of most tournaments of late in men's singles. He played a very consistent game and was lucky also that his opponent was a bit out of form compared to normal. So Minh won the game in two close sets. He then faced Sattawat in finals and clinched victory in two sets, becoming the new 2010 Dave Freeman Men's Singles Champion!

Results are as follows:

Open Men's Singles Champion - Minh Nguyen
Open Men's Singles Semi-finalist - Christopher Flores
Open Men's Doubles Semi-finalist - Minh Nguyen/Phu Khuu
Open Men's Doubles Consolation - Christopher Flores/Ba Su*
Open Women's Doubles Semi-finalist - Paula O'banana/Chin Go
Open Mixed Doubles Semi-finalist - Paula O'banana/Chandra Kowi*
BMS 2nd - Dominick Lim
CMS 2nd - Nate Le
CMD Semi-finalist - Nate Le/Ryan Ngo

For full details, please check here.

Kason Racket Supply Tournament (2/27-2/28)

The Kason Tournament hosted by Racket Supply, held at SJSU, was another successful tournament for Bintang Team, even though all of the coaches except for Roxanne were away for another tournament. Results from the team as follows:

BMS 2nd - Randy Ma
BMS semi's - Chetan Potu
CMS 1st - Jack Ma
CMS 2nd - Gavin Chan
CWS 1st - Priscilla Long
CMD 2nd - Chetan Potu & Martin Hung
CWD Cons - Priscilla Long & Micaela Lum*
CMX 1st - Phoebe Lin & Martin Hung
DMD 2nd - Brian Li & Jack Ma
DWD 1st - Priscilla Long & Micaela Lum*
U15 BS 1st - Bryan Chow
U15 BS Semi - Justin Ma
U15 BD Cons - Jordy Supandi & Eric Cheung
U15 MX Cons - Priscilla Long & Brian Duong
U13 BS 1st - Brian Duong
U13 GS Cons - Karen Ma
U11 BS 2nd - Bryce Kan
U11 BS Cons - Ethan Low
U11 GS 1st - Karen Ma
U11 BD Semi - Bryce Kan & Ethan Low
U11 GD 2nd - Karen Ma & Joanna Liu*
U11 MX Cons - Karen Ma & Bryce Kan

Thank you to Roxanne for all the time and effort spent coaching all the kids! Good job everyone -- keep training hard and raking in those trophies!

JITT U11,U13,U15,U17 (2/13-2/15/10)

Love was surely in the air and in our hearts during Valentine's Day this year -- that is, love for badminton and love for winning!!! Team Bintang spent this holiday competing against the best juniors from across the country for the few select spots on the US Junior PanAm team. Held at OCBC, the Junior International Team Trials was a three-day affair full of intense games and many bittersweet victories.

There was no question that our team was one of the strongest and most successful at JITT this year. With top players in every age category, we had many wins and secured many spots for the Junior PanAm competition held this summer. Though Coach and I were not there to watch in person, we literally checked TournamentSoftware every hour (or perhaps every 30 minutes?) for updates. And we were so excited with how well all of you performed. We sincerely thank Paula and Topher too for their dedication and commitment in coaching everyone at JITT and we extend our gratitude to all the coaches for their hard work throughout the year to get the kids this far.

Good job to everyone -- we are very proud of you!

Here is a list of our team's results:
Under 11 Age Category
U11BS 1st - Bryce Kan
U11GS 1st - Karen Ma
U11BD 1st - Bryce Kan & Bobby Huang*
U11MX 1st - Bryce Kan & Karen Ma
U11MX 4th - Matthias Lai & Michelle Zhang*

Under 13 Age Category
U13BS 2nd - Brian Duong
U13GS 2nd - Priscilla Long
U13BD 1st - Brian Duong & Vinson Chiu*
U13GD 1st - Priscilla Long & Micaela Lum*
U13GD 2nd - Karen Ma & partner*
U13MX 2nd - Brian Duong & Priscilla Long

Under 15 Age Category
U15BS 3rd - Bryan Chow
U15GS 1st - Christine Yang
U15BD 4th - Justin Ma & Christopher Li*
U15MX 4th - Christine Yang & Ryan Chew*
U15MX 5th - Hilary Lai & Bryan Chow

Under 17 Age Category
U17BS 1st - Randy Ma
U17BS 2nd - Martin Hung
U17BS 3rd - Chetan Potu
U17BS 5th - Daniel Chow
U17GS 1st - Tiffany Chua
U17BD 3rd - Martin Hung & Chetan Potu
U17GD 1st - Tiffany Chua & Christine Yang
U17MX 4th - Gavin Chan & Tiffany Chua

* denotes player from another club

For full results, please check here.

Berkeley's Polar Bear Tournament (1/30-1/31/10)

Cal Badminton's Polar Bear Tournament was quite an experience! Our team was there early morning around 8am but many of our games were 3-4 hours delayed!!! So those who reached semi's and final's in their events were at the gym until 10pm. It was super hot and stuffy, and just...an unforgettable tournament for all the wrong reasons. :[

Except however, our team performed phenomenally well and nearly swept singles, in true Bintang tradition. And this time around, we had some incredible wins in mixed and doubles as well. A big congrats goes out to all those who won and "great job" to everyone else. Many of you got very far in the draws and we noticed much improvement in many of you. Keep it up!

Here is a list of the winners:
AMS 2nd - Topher
BMS 1st - Dominick Lim
BMS semi's - Martin Hung
BMS cons - Chetan Potu
CMS 1st - Ryan Ke
CMS 2nd - Gavin Chan
CMS semi's - Lawrence Luk
DMS 1st - Brian Li
DMS 2nd - Bryan Chow
DMS semi's - Stephen Lee
DMS semi's - Dung Bui
ABWS 2nd - Stella Chun
ABWS semi's - Joyce Lee
CWS 2nd - Priscilla Long
CWS cons - Angela Lin
DWS 1st - Hensley Ellefritz
DWS semi's - Hilary Lai

CMX 2nd - Tiffany Chua & Gavin Chan
CMX semi's - Christine Yang & Ryan Chew*
DMX 2nd - Hilary Lai & Bryan Chow

AMD semi's - Minh & Ben Lee*
AWD 1st - Paula & Chin
BWD semi's - Christine Yang & Joyce Lee
DMD cons - Bryan Chow & HinHin Wong
DWD 1st - Hilary Lai & Candy Zhang*

For complete results, please check here.
For photos from the tournament, please check Ryan Ngo's facebook album.