My other badminton player

For a long time, sports was never Lesley-Anne's "thing". That is, until she went to JC and joined the Modern Dance CCA. Dance is siong, to put it mildly. Thanks to the numerous practice sessions which include intensive PT, by the end of JC, Lesley-Anne was a compact little package of muscle (she could hold her own arm wrestling Andre). She even managed to overcome her dislike for running and clinched a gold for her NAPFA test in JC2.

When she entered Yale-NUS, she continued to seek out Dance CCAs, but she decided to also try out for a sport. That's one of the great pluses of university life - you're encouraged to join as many CCAs as you like, without having to commit to just one (and without the fear of losing points if you drop one).

She tried out for badminton as that's one of the few sports she enjoys. She occasionally plays with Andre during the holidays, for fun. She thought it would be a great way to learn how to play the game properly, as Yale-NUS engages a professional coach for its training sessions.

What she didn't realise was that since Yale-NUS has a very small enrolment, its pool of athletes is tiny. Hence, some sports have difficulty attracting members, especially female athletes. So when Lesley-Anne signed up for badminton, the CCA happily welcomed her. Then two weeks into Yale-NUS and just four basic training sessions later, she found out, to her horror, that not only did she make the girls' school team, she was expected to represent Yale-NUS in the upcoming NUS Inter-Faculty Games!

Got official t-shirt and everything, don't play play! When she told us, in a panic, we didn't know whether to send congratulations or condolences. It was just so funny. With total confidence in her abilities, I told her, "Err...just try to win a few points, ok?"

It became even more unreal when she said she was being fielded as a singles player. This was pure strategy - Yale-NUS knew it didn't stand a chance playing against some of the other more formidable teams, so it placed all its bets on its doubles and assigned the rookies to singles to get thrashed for experience.

But as we all know, life is often stranger than fiction. It turned out that at the very first meetup, the opposing team had the exact same strategy of assigning the sacrificial lambs to the last singles match. Lesley-Anne's opponent was as petite and inexperienced as she was and upon discovering this, Lesley-Anne proceeded to desperately "anyhow serve" (her own words) and lob as high as she could. Final score: 21-17, 21-8! She didn't just win her match, hers was the deciding match (last singles in a set of five). WAHHH! Rookie win! Honestly, when we heard the news, we 😂😂. Except Andre who was slightly indignant. "Who on earth wins their very first competition match??" Lesley-Anne, apparently.

Since that very eventful baptism by fire, Lesley-Anne has been enjoying her twice-weekly badminton sessions tremendously. Then in end October, Yale-NUS organised an overseas athletics trip, where quite a few sports CCAs like badminton, tchoukball, floorball and basketball were given the opportunity to each send a team to Taiwan to play friendly matches with Taiwan universities.

Lo and behold, Lesley-Anne was selected to go! It was a real surprise since she's so new to the game and there are stronger players on the team. We're guessing that she was chosen because of her commitment (she diligently attends every single training session).

So off to Taiwan she went for four days and had a marvelous time. The team of eight players (four boys, four girls) had the opportunity to play against three different Taiwan universities and even though their opponents were way better than they were, it was a priceless experience.

Funny fact: Yale-NUS is known for its international mix and for some reason, the Taiwanese thought Lesley-Anne was Korean. One group of students called out to her, "Anyoung haseyo!" 😝

Lesley-Anne has been very fortunate. I can safely say that few other universities would have given such a golden opportunity to a newbie. And for me, I'm just pretty stoked to be able to say that both my kids are on badminton school teams!