One Medal at a Time

This past weekend, the tennis team had a chance to participate in the annual Tri-cities Tournament held at the Western Academy of Beijing. Four schools participated in total, including, the International School of Bejing, the Western Academy of Beijing, Shanghai American School Pudong, and the American International School of Guangzhou. This tournament was a chance for the AISG tennis team to gain experienced for how real matches are played. They also had the chance to meet some of the rivals that they will encounter at APAC, the main tournament of the season.

Many of the players at Tricities have been playing in and out of school since they were young. For AISG, the tournament was more of a learning experience than an actual competition. The tournament helped the AISG athletes who were participating in the tournament for the first time understand how most tennis players at APAC schools compete. For the returning players, Tricities guided them on what to work on before APAC, which will be held at Seoul Foreign School from October 19 to October 23.

The highlight of the tournament was toward the end. Every year, Tricities has a mini tournament in which every female and male athlete from different schools are put in pairs to form a mixed doubles team. This is a great experience to get to know more people from other schools. Over the past years, AISG has never achieved any standings in this mini tournament, but this year, AISG has made an unprecedented achievement. Grace Tang, the first singles tennis player honoured AISG by reaching first place in this mini-tournament with the ISB first singles player. Another AISG athlete, Tony Hess, the team’s mixed doubles player, also made an accomplishment by winning fourth place in this mini-tournament with his partner, who was the doubles player for ISB. 

Before APAC, the AISG tennis players will have other tennis events in Guangzhou, including the AISG tennis players versus the AISG faculty and parents tournament, which will be held at the Olympic Tennis Center on September 24. Another tournament that will help the tennis players improve on their skills is the GISAC tournament, in which all international schools from Guangzhou will participate in.