Written by: Chen Kexin Edited by: Leung Lok Heng & Choa Zhao Xiang Photos by: EusoffWorks
With just one deciding match to determine whether our Tennis girls could advance to Finals, the air was fraught with tension as we waited for the Tennis matches to start. With the support of a sea of yellow, our girls took to the courts a determined spirit, ready to go home winners!
First Singles
White skirt no.1 Hui En was our first representative on the court. Despite a rocky start, where she was having a few difficulties putting in serves she would usually be able to. However, after reaching 2-2 in the first set, Hui En seemed to have found her rhythm and managed to keep the rallies going, with pretty spectacular saves here and there. With diligent footwork and textbook shots, she managed to overpower her opponent pretty comfortably, bagging home the first set at 6-2. Hui En is completely relaxed the second set coming, managing to swing without hesitation. With occasional aces and volleys that put the audience in awe, she wraps up the second set convincingly with a scoreline of 6 – 0.
With some wonderful plays, Hui En started the night off with a convincing win!
EH 1:0 RH
First Doubles
Our first doubles consisted of small but lethal Violet and superstar Shu Jing! Shu Jing was blasting shots after shots from the baseline, setting up for Violet to execute numerous beautiful volleys. Despite some errors from attempting high-risk-high-reward shots, the pair kept cool and bounced back from the few mistakes they made. The two of them were just too good and easily won the first set, 6-1. Not one to be complacent, the two of them seemed to work even harder the second set, with Violet hitting imposible heavy serves and Shu Jing shooting out winners that had the crowd going WILD. They eventually bring home the second set, at 6-1.
EH 2:0 RH
Second Singles
Fan favourite Tricia, was our second singles player! Tricia’s opponent was a tough cookie that refused to give her any free points, with the match being a contest of focus and mental strength. With well struck forehands and backhands, Tricia was able to push her opponent into very difficult positions with threatening topspins. After a break of serve and a hold, Tricia closed out the first set 6-3. However, her opponent seemed to figure out Tricia’s usual placement of shots, and started to return her shots much more easily. Tricia seemed to choked a little but all is good as she started to fight back even more fiercely after hitting 4-5. Despite her opponent being a literal brick wall that floats every ball back, Tricia was patient in hammering down her defense. After a crucial hold of serve and bringing the game score to 6 – 5, the raffles singles finally cracked and Tricia sealed off the match with a solid winner.
EH 3:0 RH
Second Doubles
Faith and Chloe was our second doubles team, with incredible chemistry. Faith was covering the baseline and Chloe was putting every single ball back from the net, leaving their opponent absolutely no mercy, and managed to close close the first set at 6-0! However, a short break and the lights going out proved to be a little tricky for our IVP pair as they struggled to adjust to the crowd and lights (or lack thereof). Faith wasn’t able to judge the ball well,and with a few mistimed smashes and volleys, 3 games were gone in a flash and the pair found themselves trailing 0 – 3 in the second set. But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned (let alone two!) and the pair started to get back into the zone and played as per their standard. The pair ramped up their intensity and started chasing, after a brilliant display of grit, the score was tied at 5 all. By then, it was too late for RH to break the winning momentum of our girls and they managed to win the second set at 7-5.
EH 4:0 RH
Third Singles
White skirt no.2 Shu Ling was our very last player. Unfortunately, she was met with a brick-wall opponent, that left the game extremely tight. But with well struck ground strokes, Shu Ling was able to force error after error from her opponent, taking the first set at 6 – 4. But the RH opponent was soon able to figure Shu Ling’s weakness, that is in volleying back, and after a hard fight, we lost the second set. The score was tight but as Shu Ling wasn’t able to adapt to the Raffles’ strategy of playing balls short with unorthodox strokes to draw her close to the net, she finds herself trailing behind 4-8. Shu Ling never gave up however, and resorted to methodologically hitting ground strokes from the baseline. This play required much more energy as the point became longer and longer, but Shu Ling was able to prevail in most points, eventually coming to a match point at 9 – 8 after winning 5 points in a row. The Raffles player soon discovered the change in tatic and adjusted accordingly, with two very lucky shots that bit the side of the line, she was able to save the match point, bring the score to a deuce. Despite her valiant effort, Shu Ling was at the end of the day, just human and the marathon of nearly 1 hour 30 minutes sapped much of her energy. With two short balls that forced Shu Ling to cover a lot of ground, the Raffles player eventually stole the match from Shu Ling with a tiebreak score of 11-9.
Final Score- EH 4:1 RH
With this astounding win, the ladies are through to the finals! Do come down and support them as they play for the gold!
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