"The Kashif Shuja Column".....
| UCSC 'C' suffers at SAFRA ..... |
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| Written by Kelvin Kan |
| Thursday, 06 May 2010 17:43 |
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Just when you thought it was safe to step back into court. Following last week's return to 'normalcy'.... I.E. all 'C'onquering ways ....... A hiccup yet again. Against a bunch of veterans from SAFRA Team 2 and playing in 'enemy' territory, the UCSC 'invaders' were repelled by a foursome with a cumulative age exceeding two centuries. The UCSC youth squad whose collective age is below five decades must have realised what it could feel like if they met up with a Tyrannosaurus Rex! The evening's Jurassic Park experience began with Mark Wong (MW) taking on the very experienced Melvyn Chia (MC) a former B-grader. The first two sets were extremely close with MW repeatedly playing low drives and assisted with some nicks, the older man took these sets by 11-9 and 12-10. In the 3rd set, still moving like a Raptor but far from ancient, the more experienced MC was comfortably anticipating MW's game and also took the set easily by 11-3. The elder of the Pang brothers, Kor-Kor Ka-Wai (KW) entered the fray against pony-tailed Allen Chia (AC), an A grader just about 3 seasons ago. This one was a true T-Rex. Exploiting years of premiere grade exposure, AC demonstrated fine touches and delayed shots to repeatedly wrong-foot the speedy KW to comfortably take the first set by 11-6. KW (taking time off to revise for his exam tomorrow), was agitated and fired up. The young man had to be calmed down during the 90 secs break by Uncle Kelvin and Papa Bobby! In the 2nd set, KW played better but still lost narrowly by 9-11. The speedy youngster was now near eruption point, reminiscent of the recent Icelandic volcano incident and had to relax and not put pressure on himself but "just play your game...", although that's always easier said than done! It did appear that the KW volcano did erupt and spewed so much ash that the AC 'ancient' was immediately grounded by a shocking 0-11 to Mount Ka Wai. With the pressure now let, Mount Ka Wai was reminded at the break to keep the pressure on the older man, not himself. Following instructions to the set, the more relaxed (but still rumbling) teen-age volcano hit the stalling Allan by another comfortable 11-3 win to take the tie into a rubber. Displaying a more relaxed demeanour, KW was nevertheless, warned that the experienced Uncle Allan may yet give it his all in the decider. It appeared that UCSC fears were not unfounded when the SAFRA T-Rex took the first 3 points in the rubber but that proved to be nearly all that he had left in the relx oxygen tank as Mount KW erupted with all of his youthful zest to allow the gallant Uncle Allan just two more points before wrapping up the rubber by 11-5 and taking the ties to one each for UCSC and SAFRA2. The younger of the Pang siblings, Ka Hoe was up next against Wong Swee Chan (WSC) a Chinese look-alike of our Singapore squash legend Zainal Abidin. Like elder brother Ka Wai, the younger man got a rude shock to find himself 2-7 behind in the first set. At that point, it was 'wake-up' time and KH stepped on the gas to steam home in the first with a 11-8 score-line. The next two sets was "business as usual" as the talented youngster trotted home to hardly any reply from the game older man. The next 2 sets read 11-4, 11-2 in Ka Hoe's favour. With UCSC now in the driver's seat, leading 2 ties to 1, 'C'onqueror No. 4, young Ben Sim (BS) squared up with a crafty Lim Tow Sim (LTS) who is officially a D2 player. Ben started off well but lost the initiative to slumpy 6-11 in the first set. The experienced LTS rallied with BS and threw in some 'old man' touches, cutting of Ben's loose returns. In the 2nd set, BS picked up the tempo, deftly alternating between fast and slow pace to tire the decidedly older legs of LTS and was promptly rewarded with a 11-7 win. LTS dictated the pace when play resumed in the 3rd set, forcing young Ben to fall prey to the slow pace with subtle touches down the front of the court. LTS took the 3rd by 11-6. During the break before Set #4, Ben was reminded to play the way he did in Set 2. Heedin this reminder, Ben regained control, not letting LTS playing his touch game and raced to a 9-4 lead! However, the tiring LTS displayed admirable resilience to prolong the match a bit more and attempted to psyche young Ben by exaggerated feet-dragging, and through distracting body language when serving. This disrupted Ben's rhythm and agonisingly for UCSC, LTS fought back to force duece before closing out the tie, winning 12-10 in the 4th! With that, the 'C'onquerors lost on countback by just one set and were conquered for a second time this season but on the brighter side, it was an excellent lesson for our tremendously talented but clearly less experienced youngsters to be wary of far more experienced players' psychological ploys and not allow these to distract and disrupt their own rhythm and focus. However, only egos were bruised and no material damage has been done to our 'C' title cause. We look on forward. |
| Last Updated on Thursday, 13 May 2010 18:50 |
