March 17, 2008
photos are courtesy of Jeng & Debbie Pascual

Karyn Cecilia Velez can certainly add to her badminton storybook her recent trip to Europe where she competed in the two major Badminton Junior tournaments in The Netherlands and Germany.

Although she failed to bag the championship, she acquired new friends and gained more experience outside her home court in the Philippines.

She also found out that her favourite sport is still not big in Europe as it is in the Philippines.

The 18 year old, who is the Philippines’ top Junior badminton player, competed in the Dutch Junior 2008 Badminton in Haarlem, Netherlands, held from February 29 to March 2 and then proceeded to Bottrop, Germany for the German Junior 2008 tournament held from March 6 to 9.

In the Netherlands, Velez made an impression as she disappointed the Dutch fans when she ousted their 2nd seeded Yik Man Wong during her first ever match on the European soil.

Velez beat Yik in two straight sets (21-14 21-19) and breezed her way to the quarter finals, beating first Franziska Burkert of Germany 21-16, 21-6 and Munn-Tzin Bong of England 21-13, 15-21, 21-12.

Her quarter finals was tough as she faced a top player from Hong Kong, losing out in two straight sets with 25-27, 11-21.

In Germany, Velez regained her composure as she reached the Round of 6, whipping her non-Asian opponents Zdenka Svedova of the Czech Rep. 21-10, 21-8; Roxanne Fraser of Canada, 21-18, 21-11 and Selina Weinzettel of Germany 14-21, 21-15, 21-14 but only to yield to Malaysia’s topgun Vivian Kah Mun Hoo 19-21, 12-21.

In a telephone interview, Velez’s father said that this trip is part of the preparations for her to possibly compete in the London championship in 2010.

“It is part of our planning to give her exposure at different levels of the game,” Jose Fernando or “Jofer” said.

Being first timers in Europe, Jofer who is more than a manager and mentor, also observed badminton is still very much behind in Europe.

Even if the Velezes’ trip to Europe was privately funded, Jofer still believes that the Asian governments have done much in uplifting badminton to a level that continues to produce top players.

“Pero pagdating sa individual champions merong nag-na-number one na European like Peter Gade of Denmark, sila Nathan Robertson of England so merong me mga sumisingit diyan but overall, Asians dominated the sports and it’s because of the importance the governments have placed on incentives that they have awarded the different players,” Jofer said.

Proof of this is how the Asians dominated the two European championships which his daughter joined, with Jing Yi Tee of Malaysia winning the Dutch title and Ji Hyun Sung of Korea bagging the German cup.

“These two tournaments are the two strongest Junior tournaments in Europe. Europe is still behind Asia overall. However, when you talk about tournaments around the world, anybody can join,” Jofer said.

“And in the Dutch and in German tournamnets, we had enough Asians to make it very competitive. The Malaysians were there. Koreans were there. Hong Kong. These are the best players in the world. The only ones missing there are the Chinese and Indonesians,” he said.

Even Velez’s record here show that she has beaten all her European opponents easily.

“They’re not exactly bad. There are a lot of European players and they joined the German junior tournament. That’s what made it hard and more prestigious because the players who come are really good and some of them really compete internationally and do well but I guess not as much as the Asian ones. But I think they’re okay,” Velez said of the European players.

However, she still found the Asian players very tough to beat.

“All the Europeans I’ve competed with, I won. Only to the Asian ones I lost. In the Dutch junior I lost to this Hong Kong girl and the first set I did pretty well but after that, in the second set, I was out of breath. I got tired easily,” Velez said.

Velez thinks that the cold winter weather in Europe has definitely affected her game.

Her stormy matches coincided with the roaring winds brought about by the storm which wreaked havoc on the roads and railways in a lot of countries that week.

“I think mainly, I wasn’t used to this kind of weather. It’s really cold here and in the Philippines it’s very, very hot and that’s what I’m used to training and the air here is really thin and when you start to play and with all the nerves and somewhat little pressure that you have like with my dad, it adds up to all the tension and I get tired easily,” Velez explained.

Velez thinks that having experienced a drastic change in temperature, she can add it to her future plans to improve and train her body to adapt to the different kinds of weather.

“I think I did pretty well in these two tournaments. I didn’t expect to get that far. I’m not disappointed at all but then I know I could have done better like if I had known that that would be the case, I would have worked better on my conditioning. I was actually doing pretty well in terms of stamina and endurance in the Philippines but it was a whole different thing here. At least now I know what I need to work on,” Velez said.

Her father totally agrees.

“She’s not familiar with how her body feels or reacts when she exerts at 100% in cold weather. And I wasn’t sure how to coach reactively when that was happening,” Jofer said.

“I need to consult with professionals on how to train her better in these kinds of competitions. We don’t have Europe on our schedules for a long time so maybe I don’t have to worry as much but in my head I already know that she will need to do it. Because there are some tournaments even in Asia depending on the time of the year and yet as cold like Korea in the fourth quarter. It has a similar weather to this. And some of her tournaments in Australia and New Zealand can get windy,” Jofer said.

The Velezes have just returned to the Philippines and their bags are loaded with these new experiences, funny stories and a long list of new-found friends.

“Overall it was really, really great. It was good exposure to different kinds of players because I don’t usually get to play against European ones. Asians have a different style of playing and Europeans are really different. They’re really tall and big and it’s different,” Velez said of her first encounter with European badminton players.

“It was a fantastic experience. Aside from badminton itself, she and I have made a lot of new friends in the community, which I think is a very important part of her development,” Jofer said.