As mentioned in the earlier post, I first started training in school. Training was only once a week. The school coach then, Mr. F, kept asking me to go to the association to train on Saturdays but I was initially not able to as I was learning Chinese calligraphy then and the time clashed with the training time at the association. Hence, training at the association was delayed till the end of 1994 during my pri 3 year-end vacation.
From then on, I started training at the association. Since it was vacation time, I went there almost everyday. Training was normally quite fun as there were many other kids like me who trained there. The age range was something like 8 to 12 years old. Also, the boys and girls trained together. The first time I went there, I was quite amazed by some of the players. Some boys were younger than me but they seemed really good. As for the girls, their basics seemed much better than me. They could easily play many rallies while I still felt like an amateur.
The training style was this - the first hour would be training the basics with a coach. A few players would be attached to a coach and we would take turns to play with the coach. After the first hour, we would have a 5-10 min break, whereby I saw many players having fun chit-chatting with each other and getting a drink. The remaining 50 min or so was spent playing 'sheng1 jiang4 ji4 fen1', i.e. matches. The winner would move to a 'higher' table while the loser would go to a 'lower' table, hence everyone would meet different opponents. Of course, everyone's hope was to be able to make it to the first table.
The girls would often start from the 'last' table. Hence, working our way up was not easy. Initially, I was often stuck at the last few tables. However, after some time, I managed to 'rise' up and got the chance to play with some of the boys.
The girls who trained there then included 2 girls who were 1 year older than me(JM and LY) and 2 who were of the same age as me(MX and SW). Those are all I remember. Initially, I was not able to beat the 2 older girls who seemed to have played for quite some time already. I had the impression that they were very good and difficult to beat.
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A few months later in June 1995, a national age group tournament was held. The coach encouraged me to participate in the tournament and I did so. I had a shock during the first match - the participants all seemed bigger-sized and older than I was. I was only standing at 120+cm then. Interestingly, I managed to win a few matches and got through to the semi finals where I met this girl who was 2 years older than me. Each of us won a set and we proceeded to play the final 3rd set. I remember that I was trailing 13-17. It was my turn to serve. Thankfully, I won 5 points in a row from my service and eventually won that match and proceeded to the finals.
The final match was against a girl who was 2 heads taller than me. Her playing style was quite unique as it was something I had never seen before then. Her forehand was a normal rubber but her backhand was a long pimple rubber. As I had no prior experience of playing with a player or using that rubber, she was able to overcome me quite easily and I had to settle for second place.
After this tournament, I became excited about playing in tournaments and would not fail to register for them. More importantly, it was a great boost to my confidence as I realised that I was one of the top few players in my age group in my country. In subsequent under-12 tournaments, I set my targets high and aimed to come in top 2 places. I managed to achieve that except for one or two occasions when I underperformed or when my opponent performed well.
The first breakthrough for me indeed...