2023 Forza Norwegian International

Norway was an exciting tournament. I had had some good time to train, was feeling fitter and faster than I have. I arrived in Norway the afternoon before I played and took a train to the city of the event where I went directly to the hall. Unfortunately they booked 8 people per court in half hour blocks. This meant I got very little time on the main courts.

Tournament day arrived and I got ready to play. Didn’t feel top notch but felt focused and relaxed. I got on court against the 9/16 seed from Denmark, Mads Juel Møller, feeling confident I could play well. The first set went by with a poor scoreline. I wasn’t aggressive enough – the rallies were ok, but I never put enough pressure into the match. Karl Kurt, a player from Estonia came on court at the change of ends and challenged me to be more aggressive and move up in the court a lot more due to the very fast and oddly tumbling Forza shuttles. The second set was much better. I was able to control the match a lot more, and the game was tied up at 17-17. I missed a crucial net kill and lost a lot of confidence mentally and lost the next point as well. The match ended 21-18. Overall felt I played a good match, especially the second set. Mads is a strong player and able to control the court well. I was happy to play aggressively and move well. However I felt I needed a bit more edge at the end of the match – I didn’t stick to the game plan and ended up defending too much in the last 4 points.

A lot of small things to work on, but also a lot of improvements. This is the slow, sometimes bitter journey of improvement.

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Bronze in Mexico

Mexico Future Series in Guadalajara in august didn’t go exactly as planned. I played quite terrible all week, struggling with exhaustion, stress, and some personal things. However in the doubles Victor and I were able to make our way into the semi finals. We didn’t’t play our best matches, but we managed to pull together some wins to get the bronze.

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Thanks for all your support!

Bronze In Guatemala

I started coaching Victor years ago in a little school gym in St Pierre. He could barely play, and a lot of the time I was in a boot cast healing from fractured ankle and then other leg issues. He is now graduated from high school and in University, and competing regularly at a national level. He was part of Team Manitoba that went to the recent Canada Games.

A few weeks ago after I played the Denmark Masters I met Victor in Peru for his first ever international tournament where we played doubles and reached the quarter finals and lost in a very close match. I got food poisoning in Peru which despite my best efforts still affected my performance.

From Peru we travelled to Guatemala. I made it to the quarter finals where I lost to the eventual finalist. In doubles we had some good wins to reach the semi finals where we lost a very close 3 game match to claim a bronze medal.

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Thanks everyone for all your support and help!

Austria and Germany Internationals

Austria Open in Graz was a wonderful experience. The city itself is beautiful, and the hall is great. I went straight from the airport to the hall and got 2 separate 1 hour practices in the day before my match. The shuttles we got at the venue were not the babolot shuttles we ended up playing with. They were a mix of Victor and Yonex. The morning of my match I woke up feeling super sluggish, drank my coffee and did my routine, and knowing I was feeling sluggish I went the venue early and did a much longer than normal warm up. However first hit on the court I could tell the shuttles were insanely fast Babolot shuttles that flipped weird. I didn’t control the shuttle well and soon found myself trailing by quite a lot. I quickly let my frustration get the better of me and the match slipped away. I spent a few hours afterwards very upset, frustrated, and disappointed in myself. Right after the match another athlete came and talked to me, and said that he felt I needed to focus on being positive and looking at the things I did well instead of the things that were not going well. I had some good reminders from my coach as well not to waste energy on the negative and to instead focus on solutions, which thankfully I found, at least in part, in the next match in Bonn Germany.

In Bonn the venue was quite small, and we used Yonex shuttles, something I am much more used to. Though my first opponent had had some very good recent results, I was focused on playing well, and staying focused, and keeping the negative self talk at bay. I won my first match quite well, though I squandered a huge lead in the second set, and ended up winning quite close in two sets, I felt I played the way I needed to. Second match I played decently well, and had a close back and forth match where I made a few unfortunate errors that cost me the match in the end.

Sports is hard, and development is hard. Not every day is a good day, and sometimes, even when we have good days we cannot quite manage the win. But we keep striving forward! I have Danmark Masters this week, and hope to bring my best game- but one day at time. First some coaching and training today!

Thanks everyone

Kevin

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Luxembourg International

Luxembourg International

The Luxembourg International has to be one of the most challenging events I have faced recently due to a large number of factors. I flew in from Jamaica, boarded three different flights that I then had to get off of due to mechanical or crew issues, was delayed by more than a day, and missed my scheduled practice. I got less than half an hour on the main courts before my match. Despite my best efforts to plan for a day and a half to practice and recover from travel, and trying to set myself up to play well things didn’t go as planned. I did my best to shake the travel out of my legs, and compete, but I have never gotten on court feeling so sluggish and exhausted. I had 50 hours of travel, and no sleep weighing my legs down and it showed. I had a very winnable match against Spain in singles, but couldn’t pull it off. Lots to learn, and nothing to it but pushing forward for the next one!

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Tag: bwf badminton