DC Open

DC Open was fun and the first national tournament I went to. It made me really want to get better at badminton now. I went with Katie and Pat in Mike Chung's car. The drive there was kind of slow but Chung and Pat's conversation was amusing to listen to. We were the first car to leave and last to arrive. Apparently Brett drives crazily like 90mph... I remember when we stopped for lunch, we asked what exit Brett and Rajeev's cars were. We were at exit 40, Rajeev was at exit 20, and Brett was at exit 8... First day was singles and I didn't play singles, so I kind of just watched. I wanted to get some warmup, but the weren't courts or time to warmup :(. I didn't get much sleep that night either since the tournament lasted till 11:30, and we didn't get back till like 12:30 because we had to eat dinner first. I didn't fall asleep till like 3:30 and had to wake up at 6:30 because mixed doubles C was beginning at 8:00am.

Mixed
I played mixed with TJ and we were hoping to maybe win something, so we decided to lose the first game to drop down to D. The first game we just didn't try and the second game we thought we should try so we could play a third game and practice, but no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't start trying because their team sucked too much >_<. Second game we ended up playing Jarrett and Liu Xiang. Yeah we ended up winning that game. I forget the score... Then the third game was kinda bad :(. We lost the first game 20-22, but the second game, it kinda just started failing. I think the score was like 20-11 or something. By the end, the girl was playing the back and the guy was playing the front because they didn't really care anymore, since they knew they were going to win.

Doubles
I played women's doubles C with Katie and our first match was up against #1 seat so we were scared, but we were like okay just play a good game and it'll be fine because it won't matter if we lose. We lost the first match 19-21. Then we decided to target the weaker girl with short hair and wearing black. We ended up winning the second two games 21-17, and so did not drop down to D. The next time, we were complaining about the net in court 9. I didn't like the net because I couldn't really see through it, and the opponents didn't like the net because it was too tall or something, but the people in charge said it'll screw up the whole system if they gave us a different court, so we were just like w/e. Just as when we were about to play, we heard "Court 9, please return to the desk". I thought they were about to give us a new court, but apparently, we were playing the wrong team. I think they assumed that we lost the first game without paying close attention and put us in D. Apparently, the team that lost to us first round had already played the winners of the other bracket that we were supposed to play and beat them, so the winners of the other bracket that we were supposed to play thought they lost and were out of the tournament and went home. By the time they realized this mistake, they had already left, so we had to come and play the quarterfinals 8:30am on Sunday. The quarterfinals game was soooooo bad. We weren't warmed up for it at all and I just kept hitting every shot like out, but since they were really bad too, we ended up winning anyways. If we were warmed up, we should have been able to beat them easily. It was 21-16 first game, 17-21 second game, and 21-14(?) third game. We still won, but it took more effort than it should have. I thought I was going to get an hour rest before the second game because it was supposed to start at 10:15, but they decided to make us play at around 9:40, so my energy wasn't fully regained. One girl was the girl who beat me and TJ in mixed doubles and the other girl was the girl who beat Katie in singles. They didn't work as well together, but we were pretty evenly matched. The first game they won (I forget the score) and the second game we won. By the third game, I was really tired and couldn't play well. It was probably all my fault that we lost that game and what's worse was that it was the third game and the score was 21-23. I feel so bad, even now, because we could have made it to finals and gotten a trophy. We probably could have even won because the other team didn't seem that great. All my fault we lost :(. If I just had better endurance and could smash/clear well...

Reflection
That's why before Crystal City, I'm going to hopefully get better endurance (it was also because I was soooo out of shape for this tournament >_<). I'm going to need to learn to play back, like clear and smash from the back. I'm going to need to learn how to return smashes and not just block them. I'm going to need to drill a lot and actually try during practice instead of just being lazy. That might help my endurance. I should watch more pro badminton to learn from them. I might try to hold my racket up higher for more accuracy. I also need to learn to drive a backhand because I think learning to clear a backhand would be too ambitious. I just need to do something besides drop. Basically, before Crystal City, I need to learn to play back and not lose my ability to play front. Now I am done with my "DC Open" reflection...