What a day!
@mpaya had 3 matches today and I will name the opponents by seed due to our data privacy laws in South Africa.
Seed 7, the scores were as follows.
11-0; 11-2; 11-4
Seed 9, the scores were as follows.
11-2; 11-2; 11-0
This took @mpaya to the finals playing the opponent who started off as the No 1 Seed.
The scores were as follows.
6-11 to @mpaya
11-8 to opponent
11-9 to opponent
11-4 to opponent
These two young men train together weekly and continued to push each other mentally and physically today. The level of squash that they played was mind blowing.
Yes, they both had some really silly ‘mistakes’ but they also had more cleverly thought out shots, dropping the ball millimeters above the tin several times each which takes them hours of practice. We filmed the match for them to analyze their own play and work on weaknesses and keep playing to strengths.
Champions, both of them!
The mindset is, the greater win can be a loss, because this is when you gain the most experience, it happens to all the students and they keep the growth curve up which is important. @mpaya even though he came second to his mate said he feels like he won because he played his game and happy with himself. As a mother, I am so proud of him.
I need to add that Seed 1’s parents and myself are good friends and we work together for our children, the same goes for the other parents in the academy and their children, this is a team effort. Without each other’s children to play against they will stagnate so this is important! Many of the academy students made it to the top this weekend!
Their coach is the main driving force behind them, the glue that holds us together and keeps his students motivated to keep achieving! We will write his story and share with you all soon.
Also a thank you to the adults who play with @mpaya at our local clubs 😁
We begin training for the next tournament this week, @mpaya will play his age group U13 and Seed 1 U14, there will be a lot of work and effort that goes into this.