For those who know me will know that I have been playing badminton (without proper training :P) since year 6. It’s been a bit of on-off but I’ve generally quite enjoyed the sport.
For those who don’t know me and don’t know the sport generally laugh at me.
But that won’t deter me!
Many props to E for helping me realise an old passion (even older than basketball :)) as my badminton gear has really been collecting dust otherwise.
It’s been good because it has been keeping me real busy during the weekdays and weekends!
Further on to actually playing badminton, this year I also got the opportunity to see some live matches (as opposed to just checking YouTube videos)!
Last Good Friday E and I went to check out the Australian Badminton Open in Sydney Exhibition Centre:
QF - MS: Yunus (INA) v Nguyen (VIE)
We went to see the Quarter Finals which I thought was quite good value. These competitions are run by having 4 (maybe more?) games running simultaneously. So really you’re trying to focus on 2 maybe 3 games but it’s pretty much non-stop from 4pm to 9pm!
Was quite happy since a lot a fair number of Taiwan players (singles, doubles – mixed / mens / womens) made it through :D!
Mixed Doubles - TPE v POL
We also got to see the legendary Taufik Hidayat play – although he was didn’t do as well as hoped we still got to see him!
Taufik (INA) v Sho Shasaki (JAP)
The world number 5, Chen Jin was also there 🙂
Chen (CHN) v Ueda (JAP)
Ueda put up a great fight too considering he was unseeded (Chen was number 1 seed).
All in all it was a pretty good day and definitely an experience that I really enjoyed! We got lucky that the Australian Badminton Open was in Sydney this year, I heard it’s normally hosted in Melbourne.
Even if that’s the case next year onwards.. I’m sure it’ll be a good excuse to go visit!
On a bit of a side note (but related), my poor Nanospeed 6000 recently took a hit and broke :(. I think it was never meant to be because this wasn’t the first time I had to replace it! Back when I first got it from Taiwan and brought it back for stringing it snapped, so I got it replaced under warranty. But this time it clashed with another racket and broke again :(!
😦
Close up 😦
But Tommy, being the champ he is, managed to hook me up with some new ones!
Armortec 900 Technique.
Arc Saber 10 - Peter Gade edition - Lovin' the white (normally red)!
Looking forward to badminton tomorrow night 🙂 I’m promising myself to be extra careful! No more clashes hopefully!
Life and Times 