Year 10 Extra-Curricular Involvement - SEASAC Tennis!
In an ever more competitive world, in which academic excellence is no longer enough to secure a place at a top university, it is really pleasing to see so many GIS students embracing opportunities for holistic development. To that end, a good number of Year 10 students were recently representing the school in Singapore in SEASAC Tennis. Thanks to Ryan Chan 10K and Gabby Tan 10L for these interesting insights to their trip:
The team made up of Ashleigh Poh, Minami Fujimoto, Aya Matsunaga, Jasmine Koh, Radhita Diwasasri, Gabrielle Tan and Shara Tihani (all U16) arrived at UWC Dover in Singapore knowing what we wanted to achieve from this year’s SEASAC. We were out there to fight for our promotion back into Division 1 and to take this tournament as an opportunity to display our great qualities as a GIS Dragons team.
Day 1 found us up against ISY, MKIS and CDNIS. We were pumped for our first matches after playing on the swings and went on to beat ISY 4-1. Next up were local rivals MKIS where we defeated them 5-0. For our last match of the day, we faced CDNIS from Hong Kong. We fought it out on court to win 3-2. There were times on this day where we were faced against players from another team who didn’t necessarily display the best sportsmanship but we persevered and fought on together as a team.
On day 2, we had KLASS and TTS to play. We began the day in style by defeating KLASS 5-0. Our next opponents were TTS from Singapore, we fought hard and ended the round robin in 1st place after beating them 4-1. For the third and last one for the day, we had our semi final match against the 4th place team (ISY). We were determined to secure our place in the finals and proceeded to beat them 5-0.
The 3rd day of the tournament was the day of the finals. TTS won their semifinals which meant we had to beat them again in order to claim the title. We gave our all for this last match and emerged as SEASAC 2016 DIV 2 Champions!
Captaining the team this year has been an extremely rewarding experience. Going through everything this tournament had to offer together has taught us a lot and has also moulded us into a closer, stronger team. We are so happy to be back in Division 1 and can’t wait to start prepping for SEASAC 2017.
Thank you to Coach Anson for being such a great coach and thank you to Mr Gui & Ms Diana for everything they’ve done as the trip would definitely not have been as great as it was without you all.
Written by Gabby Tan 10 L
To be honest, I was extremely scared of going to SEASAC this year. We had just lost our 4 key players as 3 left and 1 had other sporting aspirations. I was extremely scared because we came in with the youngest squad in Garden’s tennis history. Our team consisted of 3 year 11’s (Ishan,Seth and Cason), 2 year 10’s (Shun and I), a year 9( Enrique) and our secret weapon from year 7 (Ariq). We came in with a realistic goal and that was to play for a podium finish. We had no expectations to win because we knew our level of tennis and it wouldn't be fit for 1st place.
Day 1 had us playing 3 schools which were ISY,UWCSEA and Ruamrudee. Obviously there were huge nerves coming into the 1st match but we overcame them as a team as sailed through easily with a 5-0 win against ISY after our extremely early hitting session under the bright lights. Following that, we knew our next opponents from Singapore were very tough customers as all of their seniors stayed for another year. Unfortunately we lost 5-0 to them in some close matches from our 2nd singles (5-8), 1st doubles (5-8) and 2nd doubles (3-8). We weren't disheartened at all as we moved on to our last opponent for the day, Ruamrudee. We played amazing tennis against them getting the 4-1 victory.
Day 2 started with us defeating our local rivals,KLASS 5-0 where we outclassed them in every way. Our next opponent was BSJ and we knew how good they were, having 3 strong singles players. We ended in a tight score of 2-3 as they took all 3 singles matches. Surprisingly, we got into the semi-finals, where we had to play UWCSEA again. Unfortunately, we lost in a very tight 2-3 affair. Honorable mentions go to Seth (for coming back with a tight 8-7 win) and Ariq and Enrique (for beating them with the same score they beat you). They say the best things come in small packages and Ariq was obviously one of them. Hats off to the little man with the most deceiving volleys.
Day 3 saw us playing the 3rd and 4th placing playoffs against a school we had already beating and that was Ruamrudee. We went in there really confident and got the 4-1 victory once again. We finished the day of tennis with bronze medals to bring home to KL!
We conducted ourselves really well on court and off the court as we shook our opponents hands before and after matches, stayed calm during bad line calls and congratulated our opponents for their successes and failures. We had inspirational team talks and played every match as if it was our last time playing the game of tennis. This SEASAC for me was one of those feelings you get when you expect to get a lower grade in a test when you actually get much higher. I am extremely pleased with our performance with SEASAC this year with such a young team. We know what we have to do next year to win SEASAC and more importantly in the off-season when we do train for next year.
To Ishan, it's sad to see you leave buddy and I hope you do well in your next school. To Ms.Diana, thank you for accompanying us and always making sure we’re safe and hydrated and happy. To Mr.Ruscoe, thank you for changing tennis in school and making it so much more focused. I have no idea where we would be without your help. And last but definitely not least, to Anson, you've been an amazing coach and I don't know how you've molded us into what we are. We’ll definitely do a better job next year.
Written by Ryan Chan 10L
