Penang Invitational Veteran's Tennis Tournament 11 - 13 Dec 2009

After months of preparation, our Penang Invitational Veteran's Tennis Tournament (PIVTT) was held on 11 - 13 Dec 2009. We had 13 teams participating with almost 200 players representing 4 countries.

In addition to 10 teams from Malaysia, we also had visiting teams from Japan, Thailand and Australia.

Our objective in hosting the tournament was for all the participants and supporters to enjoy themselves. We played tennis over 3 days, enjoying glorious weather throughout.

We raised almost RM50K in funds to finance the tournament and we gave back over 90% of that to the participants in the form of goodie bags, t-shirts, food, drink, entertainment, prizes and prize money.

We had prize money for the champion, the runners ups, the semifinalists, and the plate (loser pool). We also succeeded in ensuring that every team had a reason to come and play on the last day (Sunday) by adding a shield event for the quarterfinal losers. So in the end, 6 of the 13 teams took home prize money and everyone enjoyed plenty of tennis and fun.

The results were as follows

Cup champion - Penang Sports Club Red

Cup runners up - Lakeview Club Subang Jaya

Semifinalists - Penang Sports Club Black and Trang Tennis Club Thailand

Shield champion - Chinese Recreation Club Taiping

Plate Champion - Penang Sports Club Yellow

Judging from the photos, I think you can see that we achieved our objective of making sure everyone enjoy!

On behalf of the organizing committee and the tennis section I want to thank the main sponsor Prince for their generous donations of prizes and balls...

I also want to thank the dozens of other sponsors and club members who generously donated cash, prizes and valuable time to make the event a success. I was especially thankful to Prince for contributing shoe bags and strings for the goodie bags and also to our club members whom we approached for local items to stuff in the goodie bags. I also want to make a special thanks to Datin Lau Mei Aei who's tireless fundraising efforts succeeded beyond all expectations.

Lastly I want to thank the members of my secretariat staff who made my job as Tournament Director so easy and for the whole tournament to run so smoothly.

you can see several hundred photos from the tournament by visiting my flickr site http://www.flickr.com/tedtarg

also, as far as I know...this special lucky draw prize (smelly socks) is still unclaimed....

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....