Easter BKK Tour Blog Day 5

Benny Lin

Founder & Academy Director

Easter BKK Tour Blog Day 5

It was raining very hard in the morning but Riyo and coach Bhagat went to the tournament venue anyway. After a few hours of waiting, Riyo finally took the court against a local player who demolished the No. 2 seed yesterday. The match was extremely tight from the very first point and it was a battle from the very first serve. Both girls exchanged a lot of rallies from the baseline. Riyo had a golden opportunity when she was up 8-6 in the third set tiebreaker but didn’t convert a few chances to go up match point. She then consecutively lost 4 points and subsequently the match. The match could have gone to Riyo but her opponent was the better player on big points today. Riyo however learned a very valuable lesson today and she found out that her serve must be improved immediately if she wants to take her game to the next level. Coach Bhagat mentioned Riyo actually plays a better returning game than serving game as her serve is sometime her liability. Nevertheless Riyo scored 10 points for her effort and performance and by making it all the way to the semifinal of a Thailand national tournament, Riyo has gained much of irreplaceable match play experience that has boosted one of the key elements in tennis and a must have mental skill as a tennis player - self confidence.

As for the rest of the kids, it was rained out in the morning so the academy did a physical fitness for them at the indoor court – surprisingly the indoor court is made of clay (just recently finished). The kids were having fun playing on clay and for some of them it was their first clay court experience. In the afternoon the weather was clear and they had their usual afternoon training.

The best part of the day happened at 5pm today when all of us played soccer on a mini soccer court. It was India versus International. India team led by Nikhil’s dad, Vijay, dominated the first 15 minutes scoring 6 goals to 1. After recruiting coach Bhagat, International made a comeback and scored 5 goals to level at 6-6 but it wasn’t enough to stop the attacking trio of Nikhil, Amrit and Vijay to score 2 more goals. One key player for India team was Akash who played the defensive position. He basically did a great job defending International team, including blocking and stealing balls from me :-D Luckily Ravi has left, if not International would lose 8-0!

I was quite impressed with Amrit, Nikhil, Akash and Siddhart football skills. These kids can play and know some moves!

At the end it was a very productive and fun day for everyone.Ravi, Amrit and Akash’s father has taken a lot of pictures which will be uploaded soon and I will send the link to everyone.