FOBISIA TENNIS INVITATIONAL 2022 - THAILAND Dan Ahl Head Tennis Coach, Bangkok Patana School
Way back in 2012 when BISJ coach Jeff Landau and Bangkok Patana coach Dan Ahl created the first FOBISIA Invitational Tennis event no one really envisaged what might follow. Since then the event has visited Jakarta twice, Bangkok twice, Delhi, Penang and Brunei. Added to this swimming, gymnastics and climbing have added their own sports events and many other sports pre-COVID were looking to add themselves to the invitationals calendar. This year, the 2020 event in Phuket and the 2021 event in Bangkok were cancelled, it was finally back to hosting, albeit a Thailand schools only event, once again at Bangkok Patana School. Twelve different schools took part with 158 competitors competing. The event started on the Friday with a qualifying event where the top 8 players in each age group progressed through to the main draw on the Saturday and Sunday where they joined 8 players who had received a direct acceptance based on their ranking. The standard, especially in the boys' U14 event where many National team and top 10 ranked players in Thailand were taking part, was high and the competition intense. An amazing 275 matches took place over the 3 days with play starting each day at 8am and finishing at 8pm - with the girls age groups playing in the morning and the boys in the afternoon. The players themselves had good rest breaks but the coaches certainly put in a shift! All players should be proud of their efforts and as with most events it is the winners who are usually remembered the most, but for me it was so good to see smiling faces who, even if they were playing for 15th/16th place, gave their best efforts not only for themselves but for their school. Let’s hope the 2023 event sees players from outside Thailand being able to join and let’s also hope in another 10 years it is still going strong!
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