The UC San Diego Badminton Team (UCSD) starts off the school year strong with an amazing performance during this year’s Preseason Tournament. Taking place this past Sunday on October 27th 2019, a total of 6 universities competed; UCLA, UCI, UCR, USC, CSULB and of course, UCSD. The tournament was played at UCSD’s Rec Gym and Main Gym as a single elimination tournament.

This was the best showing that UCSD has had in recent history, even blowing away last year’s already incredible results. The finals of all 5 disciplines were fielded with players from UCSD, with victories in four. Freshman Joseph (Joey) Zhang got off to a slow start in men’s singles with his first two rounds going into a deciding third game. However, he won his finals in commanding fashion 21-18, 21-13 over Ethan Wu of UCI. This was an impressive feat for his first university level tournament. Senior Lawrence Leung and his partner junior Eu Jynn Tang fought an arduous finals game against first seeds Justin Lan and Derrick Wong of UCR. Cheers erupted as the final point was scored, bringing UCSD victory 14-21, 21-14, 21-14. Leung also made it to the mixed doubles final with sophomore Jasmine Huang against UCLA pair Carl Rosenthal and Joanne Chan. They won their match convincingly 21-18, 21-13. Visiting medical student from Hong Kong Tina Ip, junior Leilani Lu and freshman Mitsuyo Machida all made it to the semi-finals of women’s singles. Ip and Machida faced off against each other with Ip winning out 21-7, 21-7. Lu unfortunately lost to finalist Kailee Nei of UCR 12-21, 12-22. Ip had an impressive run in the women’s single’s bracket by not dropping a single game, and even more impressively, not allowing any of her opponents to score more than 10 points. In Ip’s final game against UCR’s first seed Kailee Nei, Ip was able to achieve swift victory, with the final game’s score being 21-7, 21-7. Tina Ip was also in the women’s doubles finals with fellow teammate, junior Crystal Doan. Unfortunately after a long two games of 16-21, 19-21, the pair were unable to get the upper hand of first seeds Sarah Thaw and Joanne Chen of UCLA.

These huge victories against Southern California’s best players bring with it optimism for the remainder of the 2019-2020 badminton season. The region’s next convocation will be at UCI’s annual Anteater Collegiate Championships where UCSD will undoubtedly be seeking out victories yet again.