Towards the end of our pre-season, we had the opportunity to play in a friendly tournament which, in hindsight, is probably going to be our only real competitive experience during this year after the coronavirus situation determined the end to all upcoming tournaments for the foreseeable future. Phoenix Cup, which was held at Dover, was comprised of Dover and several other teams that were formed by local school players. This was an extremely valuable experience as a badminton player as we had the chance to play against players outside the international school circuit, something that we rarely did. The value of this experience mainly lied in, to put it bluntly, the vast difference in strength; we consistently lost (with the exception of Dover) by overwhelming amounts in each match. Though this was somewhat depressing, it demonstrated the gap in both training and mentality between us and them. While analysing their play was equally entertaining as it was interesting and valuable, what this tournament showed was plainly a physical and technical level or goal to reach in the span of a year before this time again next year.
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