At the youthful age of 15, it appears Coquitlam’s Alex Lim has the B.C. badminton world at the tip of his racquet.
The Pinetree Secondary student pulled off a couple of upsets at the B.C. Badminton championships to capture the under-16 boys singles title in Coquitlam two weeks ago.
While the win wasn’t totally unexpected, the route to the final had its share of thrills and detours.
“I expected to at least get into the semifinals, but it wasn’t a sure thing,” Lim said.
The road to the title featured five matches, including three that went to three sets apiece. He took down the No. 3/4 seed in the quarterfinals.
In the end, the championship battle pitted him against unranked Calvin Che of Richmond, who had also knocked off some higher ranked opponents.
The No. 5/8 rated Lim took the first set 21-16 but saw the flip-side in a 15-21 loss in the second set.
“He started to do more smashing and more accurate shots, which caught me off guard,” said Lim. “In the deciding set it was pretty close up to 11 and then I finally broke away.”
He won it with a 21-14 victory.
Stretched over three days, the closeness of the games provided the teen a true test of his abilities.
One of his toughest battles came in the semifinal against a friend, who also happened to be ranked second overall.
The two were in a hard duel that saw Lim trailing early.
“I’ve played him multiple times and he’s a bit shorter than me and younger,” he recalled. “I have to push him to the back but he was putting his shots to the front and I had to run back and forth.”
Trailing early, Lim won the first set 21-19, and closed it out with another close win 21-18 to advance to the final.
In five years of playing, he has climbed the shuttle ladder quickly.
“When I was six I use to play with my dad in the driveway and he likes to smash it really hard. It was a lot of fun.”
That fun is still part of the game, but now success is part of the mix.
“Alex had been training very well the two weeks prior to the provincials,” local head coach Al Mawani said.
“With that in mind, I felt that if he kept his focus he could scare the higher seeds and perhaps win the tournament, so I wasn’t surprised that he won the tournament.”
The next challenge for the teen is at the nationals next month in Vancouver.
“I’ve been to the nationals twice and my goal is to get at least to the quarterfinals.”
Read more: http://www.thenownews.com/makes+racquet+provincials/4658827/story.html#ixzz1KfYFt2SE
