(by: Sally Moyland)
Again! The format of our Junior National Team Trial has changed! I’m tired of explaining the whole thing, so I’m just going to state the changes. 1) Top seeds (players with higher ratings) didn’t get seeded. Everyone had to start from the group stage. 2) A total of only twelve players would make it to the second stage (it used to be sixteen players). Due to this, there was an extra knock-out round to trim the field to twelve players. 3) Now the tournament has two parts. Meaning, this tournament in Charlotte doesn’t have an actual result of who is on the team. You have to wait until the Nationals to find that out.
Though the change of format here and there is quite irritating, there were improvements in this tournament. First of all – the environment. It was held at the Belk Gym in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I’ve never been to North Carolina before this event. The campus was quite pleasant. It gave me good vibes, as the layout and architecture were very beautiful. The size of this campus felt just right – big and spacious, but not too big and spacious. From its red brick buildings, the many trees and fallen acorns, to the calm breeze in the morning, everything about it was just nice.
Inside the Belk Gym is a basketball court. The wood floor wasn’t too bad, but it was a tiny bit slippery. During my matches, I still had to tap my shoes on a damp tissue before each point to ensure my shoes could grip the floor well. Also, there was quite a bit of room compared to the gym we used last year at Wesleyan. They were able to put in twenty or so competition tables. Overall, the environment was good.
Later that day during my afternoon practice (to get used to the competition hall’s lighting and overall feeling), the guys working on the layout were getting two more things fixed. First was the barriers. There were a good amount of white barriers that they had to cover (Table tennis balls are white, too. White backgrounds make it hard for us to see the ball!). And the gym had windows with no blinds. Same concept here – the sun is bright, and the ball is white, so you’ve gotta block that light from sight!
The overall environment was good and the flow of play was managed quite efficiently (I’ll talk about that in a second), but the experience for parents and fans who weren’t there in person was rather unpleasant. This feeling of inconvenience was mainly because people didn’t know what was going on. There was no live scoring (in sync with what’s happening at the moment), nor were the scores and status online up to date. They would post results by printing them out and taping them to the walls. That meant that only if you were in the Belk Gym would you be informed in a timely manner. Others that weren’t there never knew what had been completed, who beat who, or what stage a certain player had advanced to.
On the positive side, the entire flow of the tournament was very nice. Schedules were on point and each trial event (U19, U15, U13, and U11, not including U17) was efficiently finished in two days. The tournament was conducted smoothly and kept in decent order, and scoreboards were available on request. Sometimes, the tournament director had to shout at people to get moving, check in, and get out of the competition area and back into the bleachers. But that’s all necessary when dealing with crazy kids, and, arguably crazier parents, right? …Maybe not. But at least it worked.
Travel day:
The usual rule my family follows is that as long as the tournament is not all the way across America, we shall drive. The cons to this are that we may be tired from the travel, I may miss a day or two of practice, etc. However, we are quite used to this type of road trip, and, now that I have my driving permit, I can help a little with the driving. North Carolina isn’t too far away from Houston, so training time wasn’t sacrificed. On the plus side, we get flexibility. If you fly, you can’t go anywhere without asking for help or getting a car. I know Ubers are quite convenient nowadays, but you are going to be walking back to your hotel when there’s no Uber around. So, that’s why we like to drive.
The Belk gym in North Carolina was scheduled to open up at 3 pm on Friday. The estimated time to get there from Houston was around 17 hours, so we planned to leave Thursday night. After some calculation, we decided to leave Thursday afternoon instead, as we didn’t want to be stuck in Atlanta’s morning rush hour. I have an 11 pm – 5 am driving curfew. That meant no driving at night, so I started our trip off and let my father take a nap so he could take over when the sun went down. I drove through some downtown Houston traffic, which was a bit rough, but that didn’t last too long. Soon enough we were on our way.
Day 0 (practice day):
We got to Charlotte before noon. Since we could get our key to the Airbnb at only four in the afternoon, we thought not to waste time sitting around. Instead, we took the time to look around. After stopping by the Belk gym in UNC at Charlotte and taking a peek, we went around town to see what there was. The university was only 5-10 minutes away from our place of stay, so the radius to scope wasn’t too large. We went into multiple plazas, including one with a Walmart, one with a neighborhood grocery store, one with a Mcdonald’s, and one with a Pizza Hut. We even swung by an All-you-can-eat Chinese Hot Pot. It was a nice place, but we never got back to it. After making that circle, we took a small nap in the parking lot of Mcdonald’s.
At just a little before noon, my mom and I got up to brush our teeth, wash our faces, and get a quick lunch at Mcdonald’s. After that, we were on our way back to the Belk gym.
Though they were opening up for practice at three in the afternoon, they kindly let us in at around two. My coaches and teammates weren’t there yet, so I started warm-up myself and practiced some serves. At around fifteen to three, the previously empty, quiet, and calm gym was all of a sudden noisy, hectic, and absolutely jam-packed. Players were filling up the tables as, finally, my coaches and teammates came. We shared the table that I had been on. I practiced with my teammate for about an hour or so, and then with my coach for around the same amount of time. The training session was a bit tough due to the windows and white barriers not all being covered yet. It was like the table tennis version of “You see with your mind, not your eyes.” Instead of trying to see the ball (you really couldn’t because of all the white and light), you feel the ball. Don’t aim, just play.
After my training session, we said goodbye to the coaches, went shopping, unloaded into our Airbnb, and hit the hay. Not all Airbnbs are great and up to expectations, but luckily for us (besides the light in my room going out), everything was perfectly perfect. No seriously, it was actually good.
Day 1:
As I said in the beginning, top seeds had to play group stages. I was the #1 seed in the U19 trials event, but that didn’t really matter here. You still gotta play by the rules. The rules said I had two group-stage matches in the morning. The first matches of the tournament may be a little wobbly, but usually not all that exciting. Mine, however, were the slight opposite. During the one-minute break after the first game of my first match, my opponent spilled some beverage that WASN’T water all over herself, the floor, and the barriers. I suppose it was a sports drink of some kind. No matter what, it wasn’t water, which meant it was going to be sticky. I helped her dad clean up while she hurried to the restroom to change her shirt. I finished this first match 3-0 but managed to drop a game in my second match. Though it was unexpected, it was a good wake-up call for me to get in my game slightly quicker.
After wrapping up my morning matches, we went back to our Airbnb to have some lunch and a good power nap. Stage 2 was to start at four o’clock in the afternoon. I got back to the gym at 3 pm to warm-up with my coach. I’m absolutely thankful that he was there for every session of training and warm-up that I needed, as well as every match that I played.
All went well for the three matches I needed to play. I had five in total for stage 2, but they split the matches three in the afternoon and two the next morning. I think it was because we were in a university and the gym had a hard close at 7 pm. For sure, the hard close helped the scheduling since no dragging or late matches were going to be allowed.
Day 2:
The weather wasn’t great. It was just a bit drizzly. It was like this the day before as well. I seemed to be the only one with an umbrella out. I guess North Carolinians are immune to rain… I really was hoping the humidity didn’t impact my play.
At nine o’clock in the morning, I competed in my last two matches of stage 2. I ended up only playing one, since the other opponent was ill and withdrew from the competition. I finished stage 2 with a 5-0 score. Doing so, I entered stage 3 with a 3-0 score. In stage 2, I dropped only one game against one of my former U15 teammates. My coach had been doing amazing, as well as my parents. To be honest, I didn’t know what my dad was doing, but at least mom was focused on my matches and energized me with gummy bears in between every match! Same as yesterday, my parents brought me back to our place at noon so I could take a small break.
Finally, at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I stepped up to the last, hardest, and practically most important stage of the tournament – the stage 3 crossover. These last four matches were bound to be tough. They were definitely more stressful. But the practice and preparation I put in before this tournament paid off, and I pulled through every single match not dropping a game. I came out on top, ranked number one. I played 11 matches (including the one where my opponent forfeited), dropped a total of two games, but ultimately won every match. Now, that’s a wrap for this trial event!
On our way back we grabbed some Arby’s roast beef and curly fries. We ordered to-go and brought it all to our Airbnb. Dad and I enjoyed the meal with some professional table tennis matches on the TV as our entertainment.
Since my event was finished, nobody really bothered with their sleep schedule. Dad fell asleep early. He did all the driving, so he was tired. Mom went into my room to pass out at some point. As for myself, I found it comfy on the couch. I don’t even remember falling asleep…
Day 3:
We actually had plans, so however late I fell asleep, I still ended up waking at seven in the morning. Bowmar Sports headquarters is in North Carolina and we so rarely are ever in the region. What would it be if we didn’t visit? So, of course, we had a lunch appointment with them. Before leaving for that, we stopped by the Belk Gym once more to help some younger kids from my club (HITTA) warm up. Then, I did a slight amount of volunteer work at the control desk. I wasn’t there long, but during the time I was there I was absolutely shocked. The number of parents that would come and complain about their kid’s opponent’s serve was quite astonishing. First of all, they are U11 kids, what do you expect? Second of all, many of them who complained about others were actually the ones with the MORE illegal service. Anyway, as for helping out I would’ve loved to do more, but Bowmar was three hours away, so we had to get going.
We made it there just a little past lunchtime. I walked in the door and there was this banner clipped on the ceiling that read “Welcome Sally Moyland”. (Btw: we took it home as a delightful souvenir and memory.) We had a tour and said hello to all the nice employees there. As my dad kept getting into conversations with the staff, my mom and I got on a shopping spree. You know how you go to the mall and buy stuff? We don’t do that. We go to the Butterfly distributor’s warehouse and buy stuff… obviously, way cooler. The number of folks running around in there was quite amazing. I definitely feel more appreciative of the support I get from them. They have quite the business and every employee – from the ones that get the orders in a cart to the ones that box and label them, as well as the ones that work on the website and customer management are going at it. Props to everyone in there working with quality and efficiency.
Since I was there, I was able to look through all their stuff, so I got more than usual. I picked out all the shirts, shoes, sweaters, pants, and accessories that I needed/wanted. After that, was finally lunchtime! Olive Garden was the chosen one, so off we went.
After that lovely meal we were invited to swing by Triangle Badminton and Table Tennis. Since it was on the way back, we did so. I hit the ball around with a few people and had a little fun. They had badminton there and I really wanted to play some, but they had classes going on so I was out of luck. By the time we left, it was already night. The sun had set and the stars were bright, and we still had 2-3 hours of road to go. At last, we made it back and hit the sack hard, because tomorrow was the start of another long drive back to Houston.
This tournament was an amazing one for me. My experience was fairly nice. I must thank my Coach – Hangyu, and my club – HITTA for helping me improve throughout the past few months. I must also thank my parents, as they are the ones behind the scenes doing all the small things that support the big ones. And of course, I can’t leave out my favorite – Bowmar Sports. As they are always so supportive of me.
Lastly, thank you to anyone and everyone that reads this trip report of mine. I do hope you enjoy it. And with that, I shall be getting back to work for the Adult Trial that’s coming up in April! Wish me the best of luck! And until next time, Bye!
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