Straits Settlements Games 4th & 5th Dec

The PSC took a big contingent to Singapore to play the 9th annual Straits Settlements Games against the Singapore Swimming Club and The Melacca Club. This year the games were composed of tennis, football, badminton, squash, table tennis and snooker. Our Toshima-san was captain of the day for Tennis. The first match against Melacca was interrupted by rain, and we had to resume the suspended matches at 8:30 am... despite the early start, we still managed to prevail 4 -2 over Malacca.

Raymond and Dr. Alif enjoyed themselves on the court. Paul and Sasaki were too strong for all their opponents.

The courts at the Singapore Swimming Club were in great condition and we had some intense games against the SSC .

Eventually we also prevailed over the SSC 4-2 . PSC also took home the cup overall.

PSC vs Hat Yai Municipality Tennis Club 14 Nov 2009

This annual event has been deemed the Freddy Choong Cup since 1982 and we took the cup with us to Hat Yai along with one of the stronger teams we’ve had in years for this match on 14 Nov 2009. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the courts in Hat Yai had been beautifully resurfaced and were in tip top condition. I later learned that Police General Pingpang had donated some 9 million Baht to resurface the 9 courts and refurbish all the lighting.

But many of us had difficulty adjusting our timing to the new surface (or was it an aftereffect of the night before?) and we were quickly in jeopardy as a first three pairs (including myself and Jimmy Boon) went down "american breakfast" ( Sausages and Eggs).. Our Ladies Josephine and Keiko put up a good fight as did Nick Chua and Sasaki , but also lost their matches. We were only saved from a kosong by Lisa and Jos.

As usual, our Thai hosts gave us great hospitality with a dinner hosted by 3 VIPs , General Pingpan, Mr. Chinchan (president of Hat Yai Municipality Tennis Club and Member of Parliament), and Ms. Marika (also Member of Parliment). Special thanks also goes to Ah Seng for acting as liaison between our team and the Thai hosts.

General Pingpang gave a special souvenir for all the visiting ladies (ladies only!) and all the team had a great time in Hat Yai and we look forward to winning back the cup when they visit us in 2010!

To see more photos from our Hat Yai trip click here

Mydin Head Malaysian Super Doubles 2009

8 Section members travelled to KL to participate in the Mydin Head Malaysian Seniors Age Group Super Doubles Championships 30 Oct - 1 Nov 2009. This year they had a special event sponsored by 100+ in which the mixed doubles pairs ages had to add up to 100+ years. We were delighted to watch our Jos Fraije and Keiko Sasaki reach the finals of this event despite some tough competition and lots of gruelling matches. Congratulations to Jos and Keiko for being runners up in this great event. Also we must congratulate our Albert Cheah for also reaching the finals and becoming runners up in the 60+ group despite his partner Fadillah Ghani being hampered by some kind of bug and hardly able to move (or is it due to his new young wife?)

you can see more photos of this event by clicking here and here

Dato' Freddie Choong Cup 2009 (Annual Interclub Veterans Team Competition)

PSC again won this annual PLTA interclub veteran's competition held on 31 Oct - 1 Nov 2009

Winner Team PSC Red, 2nd Placing : BMTC, 3rd Placing : Team FTS, 4th Placing : CRC, 5th Placing : PSC Black, 6th Placing : PDC Team

Congratulations to our PSC veterans for another great performance.

PSC vs Kelab Sungai Petani

I always look forward to playing against my old club Sungai Petani. This year we played at home on 24 Oct as part of an annual series with Darts , Badminton, Table Tennis, Hockey and Tennis.

Our Captain of the Day was Ooi Soon Hong, who did an excellent job of pairing our PSC team. I was especially grateful that he made sure I didn't have to play another decider match after doing so in the last two events. I had the pleasure of partnering Luke Leighton against the KSP first pair.

KSP captain Hang brought a full team for the official 5 -1 - 1 event, including some lovely ladies.

but the Penang Sports Club home team was too strong and we prevailed 6 - 1.

ATP Malaysian Open

Lisa and I had a great visit to the ATP Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur after we played the Selangor Club match... If you've never seen top class tennis live and in person you really should plan to go and see next year... You really can't grasp how they hit the ball when you see it on TV. Its amazing to see live....

The first day we saw some great tennis action from Taylor Dent

who was nice enough to hit one of the 'prize' balls to me after he won his match, perhaps with a little persuasion from the friendly prize ball girl...

I won a player's towel... (which i hope they improve the quality of next year... Berdych complained about the towels)....

We also saw a great match with Marcos Baghdatis and Asia #1 Lu Yen Hsun from Taiwan. Baghdatis is one of the most entertaining players to watch on the tour... It was a real pleasure to watch him win this match in 3 hard fought sets.

The tournament was really top class. The venue and the court was excellent...a very exciting group of players . They even had a hawkeye system installed and I could finally get a look at the hi-res cameras that make it work. As an engineer , I've always been fascinated by the technology behind hawkeye... Click here to read an excellent explanation of how hawkeye works.

All in all, it was a great tournament and an incredibly good value opportunity to see world class tennis right here in Malaysia... no need to travel around the world ...can see closer and better live next year in Kuala Lumpur....

Psc vs Taiping CRC

This is part of an annual series of games which was played on 10 oct 2009. Lisa, Patsy and I drove down to taiping early to try out some of the recommended fried fishball koay teow shown here.

The kuih also very nice.

We were a bit worried about the weather and indeed it began to rain at 2pm... This is pretty normal for Taiping. If it doesn't rain in the morning, it will likely rain in the afternoon...if not, then it will surely rain in the evening. Fortunately, the shower passed quickly and that seemed to satisfy the Taiping weather gods, as it was dry the remainder of the time...

We played 5 mens doubles, 1 ladies doubles and one mixed double , first to reach 8, tiebreak at 7 all. Our Ladies pair of Jenny and Annette won convincingly... But Soon Hong and Albert were unable to get past their men's pair and lost in the tie break. Lisa and Sasaki were able to pull thru in the mixed doubles. Loo "no cramps anymore" Choo Teng and Haris, also won. An Injured Naidu and Captain of the Day , KK Chee lost as did our Chow and Robin...

Thus it was , for the second event in a row, I was called upon to play the decider, this time partnering Harry Ooi... As I later found out, the stakes were a bit higher this time, because the overall series of club vs club was also decided by the outcome of this match.

My partner, Harry served well and we were fortunate to find ourselves up 6 - 2. But our opponents altered their strategy a bit and before we knew it, we were struggling at 6 -6... (we certainly like to live dangerously)

Luckily i got thru my service game ok and we broke them to win when they were serving 6-7....

My first words when I came off the court were.... "where's the beer? "

The hospitality at the Taiping Club was excellent and we look forward to hosting them in Penang next year.

Tennis Court Resurfacing update 2

The resurfacing work on courts 5 - 8 is proceeding on schedule. Since this is a new vendor, we required that the manufacturer send a representative to supervise the actual laying of the turf. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the representative was not content to supervise, he preferred to do the work himself! With 24 years experience in laying synthetic grass courts, he is a superb craftsman and amazing to watch his skills in action.

We were blessed with some clear weather and the courts were laid and glued within a week's time. All that is left now is to finish infilling the sand and install the new net posts and we'll be playing all four courts again soon.

PSC vs Royal Selangor Club 26 Sept 2009

This was the inaugural year for making this match part of a series of games. Loo Choo Teng brought down a team of 15 players and we played 5 mens doubles , 1 ladies doubles and one mixed doubles. Our ladies , Lisa and Keiko started us out with a crushing 8-0 win over the RSC ladies. Our Harry Ooi and Ben Loo also scored a point against RSC to put us up 2 - 0.

But Ben's father, our captain Loo "now no cramps" Choo Teng and Haris did not fare as well against RSC's top pair , nor did Colin Chan and Teik Hoe. But the crafty and experienced Naidu and the somewhat "boh yew" Tsu Ming won a tough match against the second pair to put the score at 3 - 2.

Sally Khoo and "Go Sasaski Go" were leading 7 - 5 with Sasaski running a marathon before RSC came back to win 9 -7 and tie up the event at 3 all.
So it was up to myself and Arthur Chin to play the decider. We got off to a good start leading 5 - 4, but couldn't pull away from them and found ourselves down 5 - 6. We managed to hold our serve to make it 6 all... but there were no heroics that day and we went down 6 - 8 to hand the tennis event to RSC 3 - 4. Fortunately, the other PSC section teams saved the day and PSC had secured the overall win 5 - 3 by dinnertime...with squash yet to play on Sunday.

Many thanks to all the players, some of whom were supportive enough to join at the last minute to make up for some late dropouts... Also many thanks to the supporters... and also I must add a correction to an earlier posting: Haris's wife suffered a ruptured tendon, not a sprained ankle and is only just now recovering...we wish her a speedy recovery back to tennis...

Tennis Court Resurfacing update

The resurfacing of courts 5 - 8 has begun, starting with courts 7 and 8. The vendor , Olympic Ventures , has done a nice job so far. They fenced off 7 and 8 very well.

The condition of the slab on 7 and 8 seems to be very good... with very little patching work required.. The also repaired the back of the courts which had been badly uplifted by big roots from trees on the other side of the fence... Luckily, this part actually turned out not to be part of the original slab so it was quite easy to repair...

Here you can see where they have dug up the slab where the old netposts used to be and are ready to put in the sleeve for the new netposts.

We expect that courts 5 and 6 will be shut down on 23 September. Based on the progress so far, we expect that they will be able to finish the courts toward the later half of October, so hopefully we won't have to queue so early for much longer.

PSC vs Sitiawan Recreation Club

This was also a series event held on 4 July 2009.. Your blogger vice captain was busy celebrating USA independence day and Ooi Soon Hong was our captain of the day. Unfortunately, there was not much tennis as only two pairs turned up from Sitiawan that day...

PSC won 2 - 0

PSC vs Ipoh Swimming Club

This match was held at home on 28 June 2009 and our Captain of the Day was KK Chee. This was part of an annual series. Chee doesn't look so happy in this photo... but he certainly was happy with the results...Chee and Dato EK Chong gave this pair 8 -1 and PSC won the tennis 5 - 0. Only Danny Toh and Naidu's match against these two youngsters was close at 8 - 6.
Chee provided this assessment of the day's events, since your vice captain blogger was quarantined with a runny nose:

- Special Thanks to Lisa, Paul, Koay and Elaine for responding to the last minute call for players.

- Elaine and Shi Pei , our promising juniors secured a point (for PSC , winning 8-2)

- Captain's morning call at 8:15am and our guests arrived at 9:30 am , Captain stayed till mission accomplished

- Robin Cheah turned to standby in case we needed his service

-Rain started at 9:30am ...slowed down at 10am and stopped just as the games started... good weather for that!

Haris's wife wound up on the turf after twisting her ankle during the friendly... we wish her a speedy recovery and hope to see her back on the courts soon!

PSC vs Trang Tennis club

I was captain of the day for this event. Mr. Sampol brought a big contingent of 24 tennis players and 16 supporters from Trang. They had a good range of players from some 24 year old youngsters that managed to beat our Luke and Danny to some still spry 70+ year old players that gave our Huntu and Toshima-san a good game. They enjoyed the tennis so much, they continued to play friendly matches almost until dinner time.



We wish to say a special word of thanks to our Mr. Tan Kok Pooh for donating one barrel of beer... and to our Captain, Mr. Loo Choo Teng, who donated the next barrel... and to Koay Theam Hock , Ooi Soon Hong and (me!) for donating the third barrel or balance thereof...

As you can see from that list...we had a LOT of beer.... and good food!

Members from both clubs really enjoyed themselves after the matches..with lots of food, beer and karaoke... I enjoyed having my speech translated to Thai by Mr. Andre Agassi

and there was and exchange of beautiful souvenirs, each reflecting icons from the two respective clubs... our PSC cannon and dugong carvings from Trang


Many folks have asked me where Trang is...as you can see from this map... Trang Province is halfway between Hat Yai and Krabi... Trang town is inland on the road that runs north to south between Krabi and Satun... We're looking forward to visiting Trang and play tennis against the Trang Tennis Club next year.... or next week!

PSC vs Royal Klang Club

Our Toshima-San was captain of the day for this event... which was a new annual series of games vs Royal Klang Club on 30 May 2009. PSC won 3-2

Raintree Invitational 2009 - Final result

The PSC played the final against Raintree. It was a rematch of their first round encounter and of course both teams juggled their lineups...

Raintree got a bad fright from us in the first round and brought in all of their top guns for the final including Khoo Chin Bee who is a former ITF Women's circuit champion (won doubles final in New Dehli) and two time All-American NCAA player.

They also had former Malaysia men's number ones , Wilson Khoo and Suresh Menon... Suresh is also the ITF development officer for Asia and has been the National coach for both Malaysia and Indonesia.

They had 4 ex-Davis Cup players, Wilson Khoo, Terence Chia, Suresh, and Selvarajoo

So needless to say, they were a pretty strong team and they got the better of us 3 -2 in the final.

here's the detailed scores and results of the final tie

30's-Poh Yang Hong-Chua Jin Ghee lost ... 4-6, 3-6 Terence Chia and Wilson Khoo

40s-Luke Leighton-Ooi Soon Hong...lost 3-6, 4-6 Suresh Menon and Terry Wong

Mixed doubles -David Ng-Lisa Targosz...lost 4-6 , 1-6 Khoo Chin Bee and KM Tan

60s-Albert Cheah-Jimmy Boon... leading , awarded walkover by raintree opponents Danny Hor and James Lee

50s-Robert Tie-Masami Sasaki ... trailing , awarded walkover by raintree opponents Selvarajoo and Melvin Song

The PSC had a great run to the final this year. Its been 3 years since we landed in the final. But despite the good result, the stress of managing the team and juggling all the players took its toll on Captain Cramp... he wound up stressed out and cramping again before final, eventually he checked in to Gleneagles KL for a drip. He's ok now, but he better get his blood chemistry sorted out before any more big matches... the stress is sometimes greater on the non-players/managers than it is on the players themselves.

Also , we'd like to give a word of thanks to Poh Yang Hong for hosting a dinner for the team but unfortunately most of the team couldn't make it due to Captain Cramp's hospital visit... Thanks anyway Yang Hong and we hope to have nice dinner for you next time you are in Penang. Captain Cramp promised to treat the players with the accumulated prize money from the past two years.

Finally we'd like to give a word of thanks to all the players who made up the team this year..They trained and worked very hard to get a good result

Team Roster

Ladies (30 years >)
Lisa Targosz
Keiko Sasaki

Men (30 > 39 years)
Chua Jin Ghee
Otto Tie
Poh Yang Hong

Men (40 > 49 years)
Luke Leighton
Ooi Soon Hong
Chuah Hong Yik
Koay Theam Hock

Men (50> 59 years)
Masami Sasaki
David Ng Hoi Pong
Chee Kok Khoon

Men (60>)
Albert Cheah
Robert Tie
Jimmy Boon

Non-playing but cramping captain
Loo Choo Teng

Raintree Invitational 2009 - we're in the final!

Saturday afternoon the PSC team beat Raintree 3 -2 to win the group The three winning pairs were Robert & Sasaki, Albert & Jimmy, Luke and Soon Hong. Otto and Jin Ghee lost to Terrance and Wilson Khoo. Lisa and David lost a tiebreak after fighting back from 3 - 7 down.

This appeared to throw a wrench into Raintree's calculations. By winning the group PSC set up a semifinal match with Taiping CRC. Raintree will play Lakeview (who we often had problems beating in previous semifinals).

In the Semifinal, Yang Hong and Jin Ghee made quick work of Taiping CRC 6-1, 6-4 , 60's pair won 6-4 6-3, 40's pair won 7-5 4-6 super tiebreak 10-4. Being up 3 - nil, we gave walkover for the remaining matches to let the players rest for the final.

Raintree indeed had a tough time with Lakeview in the other Semifinal going 2 - 2 and Raintree won the 50's decider on super tie break best of 3 sets 10-4

Raintree Invitational 2009 - first round results

I didn't go down to KL this year as I'm taking care of our furry four legged daughter, but i'm keenly following the results ...

First Tie (Friday nite) - PSC vs Kelab Darul Ehsan PSC won 5 - 0 ... only Lisa and Nick Chua struggled in the mixed doubles ... they found themselves down 4 - 7 before coming back to win 9 - 7.

Second Tie (Saturday morning) - PSC vs Sandakan PSC won 4 - 1 Mr. and Mrs. Sasaki also struggled in the Mixed doubles pairing and couldn't claw their way back.

There is still another tie to play Saturday afternoon against Raintree Tigers ( A team)

But based on the first two results the PSC should be already safely in the Semi-final on Sunday morning.

Courts 5 - 8 resurfacing

Folks, at the Penang Sports Club AGM held on 26 April 2009, the members approved a proposal to spend not more than RM300,000 to resurface courts 5 - 8. As you are probably aware, there's no material left to repair these courts and now court 7 is becoming a trip hazard.

The previous job of resurfacing courts 1 - 4 commenced on 25 August 2008 and was completed exactly one month later at a cost of RM240,000. With the recent devaluation of the Australian dollar vs the Ringgit and the general deflation of raw materials prices it should not be a problem to resurfaces courts 5 - 8 within the approved amount.

The Tennis committee is of the opinion that we should match the synthetic turf of courts 5 - 8 as closely as possible to courts 1 - 4 so as to keep the playing conditions as similar as possible. (Our Teik Ho may have to adjust his court preference or start to play grass court! )

The Tennis committee is working together with the GC in the process of requesting quotations. We hope to have a vendor selected soon and can schedule the work to commence mid-year.

PSC vs Satun

Since I didn't make it up to Satun, I have requested Doug Howard to be a guest blogger for this event:

PENANG TENNIS AWAY VS SATUN, THAILAND, by Uncle Doug
I was cleaning out my PSC file and came across a schedule of events for June 2001 that had us going to Satun. Naidu remembered that it had been canceled due to the spread of violence from the east coast to the west coast of southern Thailand and that we had not been there for over 10 years.
I remembered that our group had taken a Thai van to Hat Yai and hired a very old Mercedes taxi that struggled over a dirt road full of big potholes for about 2 hours. This year, however, Naidu found a new road that went to a border crossing close to Satun. The scenery was fantastic, and we had a much pleasanter and faster trip for our driver and his passengers B.T. Tan, Jimmy Boon, and yours truly.
DR. Michael chauffeured Jack and Toh. Rusli, having flown in on the Hantu Express Broomstick, was waiting for us at our hotel.
Our local hosts also greeted us at the hotel and provided transport to and from the new tennis facility. It was now located in a fairly new sports complex. The club had four courts and were all full before our match. Their lady players were quite disappointed when only 8 old male reprobates showed up!
We had a VERY friendly match, with PSC winning a "grand" total of 6 games (Editor: and zero matches) , half of those won by our two oldest players. We were much more competitive when we adjourned to an impressive restaurant for a sit-down dinner. Our captain, Naidu, made a nice, brief speech inviting our hosts to please return to Penang after such a long absence. They appeared to be very receptive and eager to renew our old competition.

Fun Tennis

On 14 March 2009, we held another fun tennis event to mark the farewell for several of our Japanese players who are going back to Japan. Our Japanese friends who are returning to Japan are:

1. Mrs. Harumi Toida

2. Mrs. Miyuki Kawata

3. Mr. Satoru Kawata

4. Mr. Shigetoshi Harada

5. Mrs. Kumiko Toida

and you can see the ladies from that group seated in this photo:

I organized the tennis as poker tennis , with a great deal of valuable help from Lisa and Patsy. Koay Theam Hock arranged all the food which everyone agreed was really delicious.

As we drew cards to determine our first partner, the pairings were naturally "rojak" (all mixed up)... and some players were concerned about their partner...but they quickly learned that poker tennis had little to do with tennis and everything to do with your skill in choosing your cards after you come off the court...

Proving that he's a better gambling man than a tennis player, Toshima emerged the winner with a Full House... and Hiroshi San came in second with a flush...
Datin Mei Aie generously donated some nice farewell gifts for the ladies and I'd like to once again thank Tan Kok Poo for generously donating the 1881 Brand playing cards from his factory , Yong Guan Heng & Co.
Everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves with the food, beer, sake, shochu , and whiskey that we consumed at lunch time... Although the excess amounts consumed had a predictable effect on the organizer after he got home.
That shochu must have had kryptonite in it! We wish our departing Japanese friends all the best and we hope to see them in Penang again soon!