2003
World Junior Championships
December 17, 2003 (Wednesday)
As you have seen already, we placed 10th in the team event. My goal for
the team was to finish in the top 10 and we achieved that. Whitney played
particularly well against Brazil and India. She was very worried about
playing Brazil #1 because she lost badly last time (I think US Open) but I
believed Whitney was a better player and she started to believe it too and
pulled out the match. Jackie came through against Brazil no. 1 down 2
games and fought back and dominated the fifth game. This was an important
win for us because it guaranteed at least a 10th place finish. Whitney
played very vs. India and took both her matches but we did not win.
Matches of note:
Jackie has won her first two matches in her RR but lost to the Chinese
player. This particular Chinese is Cao Zhen. She won the Malaysian
Open
this year and is ranked #20 in the world. Jackie played very well to push
her to deuce in the second game and 11-8 in the third. After the match
Jackie told the Chinese player "thank you for being so nice to me during
the match" and the Chinese player replied, "I wasn't trying to be nice
your
play made me scared." Jackie was very happy after hearing this even
though she lost 3-0. Jackie's next match is the biggest one in the RR.
She
must play a German player and win to advance out of her group.
Whitney played well against the Japanese player ITO and went to deuce in
the first game but was unable to pull it out. She was very competitive in
all three games. Whitney's important match is next up. She will play
Ema
Recko from Serbia and Montenegro. She needs to win this match to advance
out of her RR.
Laura played well today but both her opponents were very good players. She
played solidly and she and I were pleased with her performance.
Katherine played well also even though she feels she did not. She was
literally scared when she played the Taipei player but still made quality
shots but was overmatched.
The
Team in front of the U.S. Embassy in Chile, with David Bustamente. L-R: Laura
Leach, Whitney Ping, Coach Dennis Davis, Katherine Wu, Jackie Lee, David
Bustamente. Click on picture for larger version!
David Bustamante, Cultural Affairs Officer, gave us a tour of the
Embassy (very nice place) and had their photographer take pictures of us.
We were not allowed to bring our cameras in the compound for security
reasons. We gave him a post for the world junior championships and all
signed it. He spent a good amount of time with us and was very nice.
he
was very please that we beat Chile easily in the team event so he can brag
to the Chilean employees of the embassy.
Signing off from Santiago,
Coach Dennis Davis
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