In the Junction Road Park, there were eight young, energetic boys on the two nearby hard tennis courts of the park - some were resting in the shadow, some were playing matches and some were chairing matches. But there was one thing in common among them, that is, they were competing with each other through tennis playing. These were all I could remember in the first Tennis Tournament organised by our class. This happened in the late August of last summer.
Remember on the day of the announcement of the final term examination results last year (placement), we were sitting around a table in the canteen of the old campus. Suddenly we had the idea of playing a tennis tournament and we then began the discussion. After struggling for half an hour, we decided that this tennis tournament to be held in the next two days in the Junction Road tennis courts with a first round of eight players who would play on a knock out basis. All that happened was so fast that it seemed we hardly had any time to prepare for it, but we eventually did it. This includes the booking of courts, the arrangement of all matches and the allocation of umpires for each match.
Two days later, two finalists came out and they had played a enjoyable and exciting match in the final. The champion was born the first time and it was Daniel Chan Wai Keung, the runner-up was Gary Lam Ka Wai. Since every body enjoyed the matches, we decided to organise another in the late September so that everybody had enough time to prepare for it.
The second one was held in a more experienced fashion with a first round of sixteen players. That means to be a champion, you must beat four opponents in a row. Although the semifinals and the final was delayed and had to be rescheduled because of raining, we eventually made it thru the final. The third tournament was organised in more or less the same manner as the former two, except with a total of 24 players and the introduction of seeded and unseeded players.
To me, the second one had the biggest tennis atmosphere since we occupied the four main tennis courts of the park and there were no absentees in all of the matches. Moreover, every players had significant improvements in their techniques. This made the matches closer and more exciting. In contrast to the second tournament, there are quite a lot of absentees in the third one. Some were injured, some were sick and some were busy in doing work assigments.
By the way, these are valuable experiences for us because I think the only way that can really improve your tennis is through the playing of matches. You must play well and consistent under the pressure coming from each match play. These three tournaments had given all the participants sufficient match practice and pressure and I am pleased to find out that their techniques was improving and their interests in tennis had been raised. Finally, I hope in the near future, we can organise the forth, fifth, ..... to continue this never ending tennis mania and you must be one of the players next time. Bye bye!
Alex