(by Sally Moyland)
Wow…so many flags. On every post we drove past there was a Qatari and an American flag tied to it. With the relaxing weather and pleasant scenery in the background, the swaying American flags felt very welcoming.
I’m not sure what made me think the flags were up for Team USA…not surprisingly, that assumption was wrong. As I was pondering on the “Why on earth would we be welcomed like this” question, I finally remembered – President Trump was in town! I wasn’t lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Air Force One or the president’s motorcade, but it seemed like my teammates did.
We didn’t practice on the day we arrived. It was decided to first settle down and practice the next day. Because of how the warm-up tables and times were distributed among the many countries that participated, we had to split our team up into two time slots. The girls went first and the boys about an hour later. Only that hour later turned into two hours later. The story was that their bus to the venue got stopped with the rest of traffic due to a blockage in the road. Now, why they were halted was technically unconfirmed. However, we had strong evidence suggesting that it was the president’s motorcade leaving town. According to the boys there was something flying overhead and the traffic was stopped in an abrupt fashion. It was like someone jumped out and said “OK EVERYONE GETS TO STAY RIGHT THERE AND WAIT”. I wonder who could and would do that? After a grueling hour of sitting in a freezing cold air-conditioned bus, the poor guys finally made it to practice.
I ran into a slight issue when I tried to check into my hotel room. I was there earlier than my roommate, so it was just me. Since I was legally still a minor at the time, I supposedly couldn’t check in myself. After some back and forth with the receptionist, she was nice enough to find another way. Scanning my passport through whatever machine they had didn’t work, but keying information in using some human power did the trick. She wanted me to go and scan my passport again after my roommate arrived but umm…well…I never remembered to get back to that. Other than the rough start of getting into the hotel, everything else was quite good (it was a four star hotel). I stayed at a four star hotel in America just a few days earlier, and let’s just say… the one in Doha was considerably better. I thought the overall hotel experience was quite enjoyable.
However, I heard quite a few voices complaining about how the other hotels had better food, or how their rooms were bigger and had better views. Well, that right there is a great example as to why we shouldn’t compare and should just be grateful and make the best out of what we’ve got. Because, what’s the saying? Ah, yes. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Some people spent that week unhappy and some spent it content.
A lot of people only had one event to play in. I was lucky to get to play in all three – singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Even though I lost most of my matches, there was a lot to learn from the experience I received competing against these world class players. I lost in my first round of doubles and mixed doubles. In the doubles event we had a tough first round match-up against team France.
They were an Olympian pair, so they were definitely the favorite. As expected, there was quite the skill gap between us. There was a controversial dispute later on in the tournament with a situation that I encountered in my doubles match as well. It was whether the opponent’s service was in the box or across the middle line. I’ve learned that instead of what we did (continue the point with hesitation and confusion) or what the pair suffering the same problem in a later match did (stop the point and argue that the opponents had faulted), we should’ve either just played the point without question or made a big fuss by raising our hands while still hitting the ball over. No matter, that’s a lesson that we may or may not see come handy in the future.
My mixed doubles loss was a harder pill to swallow. We played a Chilean pair that had won the Pan American Championships not too long ago. Though still being the underdog here, we started off strong with a 2-0 lead. And although trying our best, we couldn’t stop their fierce comeback, taking us down 16-14 in the fifth set. It was also a bummer to miss the chance of playing North Korea. I would have been pretty stoked to play the Paris Olympic silver medalists in the next round. Nonetheless, it was valuable experience and a good preparation for our Pan Am Championships later this year.
All the singles matches were best of seven, so there was no such thing as an easy match. I won my first match 4-1 against a Nigerian player. The match was filled with long rallies where I really needed to stand my ground. Overall, I was quite satisfied with my play and was happy to advance.
In the second round, I was matched up against Brazil’s best. She is also one of my major opponents in the Pan American region. Although I wasn’t able to pull through, I definitely had my chances. Looking back, it was a fun game. We had a little seesaw situation going on where one end of the table had bad lighting while the other had a good one. So, it was kind of a race to see who could get a game on the bad side first. I think a major turning point was when I was leading by four points on the bad end but was unsuccessful in finishing the set off. One of the aspects where my opponent out-did me was the mental game. She was stronger and more resilient when behind, whereas I started to play more conservative even whilst leading. This has been a mental challenge I had overcome before, but here seems to have crept back in on me.
With that 2-4 loss in the round of 64 of the singles event, my first World Table Tennis Championships journey came to an end. I’m very grateful for the chances I got and the lessons I learned. A big thank you to Bowmar Sports and Butterfly, my teammates, coaches, parents, and well-wishers. The next big events coming up for me are the US Nationals and Las Vegas Smash. The journey continues, and see you ‘round the net…
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