Sikat sampai mampus!

Today I participated in the Lancaster University Inter-College Badminton tournament. There are 7 of us representing Graduate College, myself, Ken Lee (from Malaysia too), Devin (from China), Siva (from Sri Lanka), Rana (a girl from North Cyprus), Eddie (a girl from Hong Kong) and Jenny (from China I think). All of us are postgraduate students, competing against the younger undergraduate students. The format is one men double, one ladies double and one mixed double.

We won all three group matches against Bowland College (3-0), Pendle College (2-1) and County College (3-0). I partnered with Ken for men double and we won comfortably against Bowland (15:1, 15:5) and Pendle (15:4, 15:9). There were two university players playing for County and we won in a rubber set (15:4, 8:15, 15:9). In the semi final we won easily against Fylde college (2-0) and Ken and I also won easily (15:8, 15:4).

At that time I already played 9 sets throughout the morning. Last year winner, Lonsdale College only need to play twice in their group matches and now we are facing them again in the final (we were a runners-up last year). They have the strongest men double and university ladies captain also playing for them. First set Ken and I won easily at 15:5 but we were quickly overwhelmed in the second set when we lost 2:15. At that time they are changing their tactic by keeping pressure on us through lots of smashing shots. I noticed that our ladies already finished their game but I didn't know their result. In the third set we were leading 14:8 when something strange is happening, we just couldn't finish the game. And they took the opportunity to gather point by point until they manage to draw level and then leading at 16:14! We try everything we could but eventually they managed to seal the game at 17:14. What a match, albeit a strange one.

Maulana (another postgrad from Indonesia) is supposed to play with us but he broke his leg last Friday. I messaged his mobile phone after the game informing the results. He messaged back "..kalau begitu kita sikat mereka taun depan! sampai mampusss!!!" sounds funny, turned out that what he meant is to 'knock them out'. Otherwise might as well bring a hair stylist with us so that we can comb their hair to their death!