OxBridge Games 2007: Badminton

Having waited restlessly in the unexpectedly cold Oxford morning for more than 10 minutes, we were greeted with the sight of 2 badminton players from the Other Side - a guy and a girl. I must say that the windbreaker worn by the girl was rather intimidating - "Oxford University Badminton Club". Matters weren't helped when Yew Hong pointed out (helpfully?) that she played in the recent Varsity match..

We were brought to the badminton court of Wadham College, and one word summarizes the condition of that particular court - it sucks. It's cramped, and the ceiling's way too low. That's why the shuttle hit the ceiling rather frequently, which was quite irritating during play.

The first match was the mixed doubles - Karen and I took to the court, but we kept hitting the shuttle out of the court. We lost the first match rather tamely to them, but in the second match we were getting more used to the courts, but alas the Blues player is really a class above us, hence we still lost the second match to them. We were thus down 0-1.

In the men's single, I could say that the guy was no match for me, but I kept making simple errors like hitting the shuttle out of the court when I lifted the shuttle, and smashing the shuttle into the net. I won the first set, but those errors costed me the second set. In the third set I suddenly got into the rhythm, and thus easily won the last set. 1-1.

In the deciding women's single, Rachel was up against a tougher opponent than mine - as it was her first time in the courts, she, like us previously, made a lot of unforced errors (by this juncture we were actually suspicious that the badminton court was actually smaller than the normal ones). She lost the first game rather quickly, but in the second set she fought back more valiantly, but was still tamed by the Blue's precise strokes. It ended 1-2 in the Other Side's favour, sadly.

Written by Liew Yi Jin