Second GNR8 Cup

What a night!

No less than 12 players turned up for the second version of GNR8 Cup which was held on 22nd Feb 2009 in Centerpoint Gadong. With 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies to play for, everyone was excited. We initially had 11 male players in the draw and at the last minute, we added 1 female player.

When the draw was made, we tried to make it fair for the all the teams to have equal abilities. As it turned out, some teams were stronger than others! (You know who you are..... heheee)

From the draw, here are the teams formed:

Team 1: Isham / Nab
Team 2: Jester / Auntie (the only mixed doubles team in the lot! haha)
Team 3: Halfiq / Papz
Team 4: Bung T / Hj Bahar
Team 5: Jerry / Hj Besar
Team 6: Sui / Manon

The format of this one-night tourney was round robin where all the teams get to play each other. Straight sets win would give 3 points to the winner and 0 point for the loser while Rubber sets win would give 3 points to the winner and 1 point for the loser.

Since we had 6 teams altogether, each team will play a total of five best-of-3-set matches. This means at least 10 sets alogether. The matches were great especially in the beginning, but towards the 4th and 5th game, everyone was tired.

By the time all the teams played 3 matches, there were 2 teams that won all their matches at that point. This was Team 4 (Bung T/Hj Bahar) and Team 5 (Jerry/Hj Besar). When they met each other, an ensuing battle was in store. I didn't keep score but it went something like this: First set was won by Team 4 and in the second set, Team 4 was leading 18-12. Somehow, Team 5 found the will to fight back from there to win the 2nd set. Not an easy thing to do! In the rubber set, it was also a hard fought battle with victory to Team 5.

In their last games, Team 5 won comfortably against Team 2 (nanti kamu! haha) and Team 4 won their game as well against Team 6.

When the matches were finished, the standings went like this:

1) Team 5: Jerry / Hj Besar (with 15 points)
2) Team 4: Bung T / Hj Bahar (with 13 points)
3) Team 2: Jester / Auntie (with 10 points)
4) Team 1: Isham / Nab (with 7 points)
5) Team 6: Sui / Manon (with 3 points)
6) Team 3: Halfiq / Papz (with 1 point)

The matches went on until 11:30 PM! Very tiring indeed.

All in all, another great GNR8 Cup. Thanks to all the players and congratulations to the winners!

The event also marked the lauching of the new TEAM GNR8 jerseys.



Learning points

- Format of round-robin proved to take too long. Consider changing format to combine round-robin with knock-out.

- A better venue is always welcome like PGGMB building.