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[by Stephen Z]
Four new boys, three new girls, and one of the youngest teams in AISG sports history, our 2015-16 varsity tennis team travelled to the city of the Forbidden Palace to compete with three other schools in the annual Tri-Cities tennis tournament. The other three challengers, Shanghai American School Pudong, Western Academy of Beijing, and the International School of Beijing, were packed with talented players possessing years of experience. Agile and skillful, the tennis players of the other schools were undoubtedly stronger in many ways compared to our team.
The round-robin matches of the tournament were divided into the categories of singles, doubles, and mixed. The first two schools matched up head to head were AISG and WAB—a sense of intimidation and a lack of experience were the biggest obstacles facing AISG’s athletes, which they were unable to overcome in their first matches against the domineering Western Academy of Beijing. Our Rams fell to the Tigers in their matches of “first to 8” in 0-8’s, but it did not bring dismay to their positive and confident attitude. The girls, on the other hand, had very close matches, barely losing to the other three schools in the round-robin stages.
Next up were the final stages of the competition in which AISG’s boys and girls were unfortunately pitted against Shanghai’s Pudong to determine who would bring home the trophy for third place. Although the Rams had been defeated by the Eagles in the round-robin stages, the Guangzhou team valued every serve, every return, and every point. They revealed their true talents, with more experience than any game before. The boys’ second singles player, freshman Boon Yang Koh, rallied his game to a tiebreaker in his first official Tri-Cities. The two challengers battled it out on the intense court, until only one victor took the name of third place in the boys’ second single bracket. Thankfully, it was Boon Yang.
Boon Yang’s older brother, senior and only returning player from last year, Boon Yeow Koh, also managed to struggle his way to a tiebreaker, 7-7, against the first singles player of Pudong. However, Boon Yeow was unable to defeat his opponent, unlike his younger brother. Even so, he already had undoubtedly brought one of the most difficult games to his Shanghai opponent. On the girls’ side, the Rams faced the Western Academy of Beijing, fighting for 3rd place. Grace Tang, 2nd year tennis player and sophomore, started from a bottom rank of 4th in her first singles bracket, but battled fiercely against the opposing Beijing player, and eventually clinched 3rd place. Although her teammates did not bring home victories, they had already played the best games of their lives.
Within these two short days of intense tennis, the Rams gained valuable game experience and skills. Albeit returning home with a cliff-hung fourth place, a step from bringing home a trophy from the Tri-Cities Tournament, the fresh new tennis team amazed the other schools of Beijing and Shanghai, leaving them with different expectations for what would come during the upcoming APAC, hosted in Guangzhou.
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