As the first season of UAAP sports have come to an end, The GUIDON selects two players who have been a revelation for their respective teams. Toby Gadi and Justin Chua’s breakthrough performances have been key factors in their teams’ championship runs.

TOBY GADI

No boy flick-serves Toby Gadi and gets away with it.

Quite foolish really, why anyone in their right mind would lob the shuttlecock right into the strike zone of the country’s best player. But that, and other woefully futile strategies, is what countless before have resorted to in their quest to conquer Gadi—and so far, none have succeeded. In fact, no one has come close.

Through roughly two seasons of collegiate competition, Gadi continues to show why he is the top dog. When it comes to one-on-one play, he has never been defeated—a record he has kept since his rookie year. What’s more, no one has even managed to take a set off of him. So dominant has he been that even if his opponents’ scores would be doubled, they’d still find themselves on the wrong side of a beating. Because for Gadi, blowouts in the UAAP have become all too frequent.

Growing up however, the phenom had his sights set on things other than badminton. “I was really into basketball but when I turned eight, my parents asked me if I wanted to try badminton for fun,” he explains, “so I did, and my coach liked the look of me. Now here I am.”

Under the capable tutelage of coaches Nelson, Kennevic, and Kennie Asuncion, Toby has not only matured into Ateneo’s golden boy, but is also the nation’s best bet for international badminton success. It really isn’t farfetched then that his ambitions include winning competitions abroad (think All England Open).

“Of course competing internationally is great, but I want to have good results here too,” he says. As he uttered that line, a distinct hint of discontentment was audible. Like Rafael Nadal, this former national team member continually strives to improve his game even when he’s nigh untouchable already.

Last season, the Blue Shuttlers finished atop the round robin standings only to succumb to UST in the semifinals. This year, it has been coaching strategy more than anything else that has propelled the men’s team to the cusp of a championship. Simply put, the team is playing smarter now as everyone has a definite role. Toby’s role is to slaughter the opposition.

How he got so formidable isn’t really a mystery. As cliché as it sounds, all it takes is hard work. Out of seven days in a week, Toby trains on court thirteen times, taking only Sunday afternoon of; the Blue Shuttlers are only required to train four or five times a week. As if that isn’t enough, he jogs and lifts weights in his free time.

With vast improvements come lofty expectations. For Season 73, Toby aims on grasping the MVP trophy, an award he narrowly missed last year. Though he states otherwise, bringing a championship to Loyola Heights is his ultimate goal.

“I try not to think about pressure when I play. Alam ko namang kaya ko eh (I know that I can do it) so I’ll just do my best,” says the shuttle-pounding wunderkind. In many respects, Toby is the badminton equivalent of Kiefer Ravena, and it would take one very inebriated man to bet against him.

Justin Chua

On July 18, 2010, the Blue Eagles squared off against the UST Growling Tigers for the first time, with Ateneo coming off a shaky win over Adamson and UST fresh from sending the NU Bulldogs to the pound. In the first half, Kirk Long was struggling to find his rhythm, and Nico Salva was shooting a shade under 50%. But by the fourth quarter, the Blue Eagles had served the Growling Tigers’ first loss behind Justin Chua’s dominant performance, with a stellar stat line of 17 points, 11 rebounds, and four swats.

This was expected, as most scouts touted him as one of the biggest secrets of the UAAP Hoopdom. Before entering Ateneo, Chua was tearing up the Tiong Lian Basketball Association, playing for the Chiang Kai Shek Dragons. “High school ball was different. I didn’t shoot jump shots a lot because I shot almost 90 % in the shaded area,” Chua says. His legendary 15 points, 17 rebounds, and 10 blocks made history for the Dragons; they eventually crushed the Xavier School Stallions’ hopes of a three-peat.

Coming into Ateneo, he performed at a slower pace compared to fellow rookies Nico Salva and Ryan Buenafe, who both had solid rookie seasons.  In five games, he averaged 0.8 ppg, 1.6 rpg, and 0.8 apg. “I felt I wasn’t ready yet”, says Chua, “Rabeh [Al-Hussaini], Jobe [Nkemakolam], Nonoy [Baclao], and Mike [Baldos] were in the team so I couldn’t play.”

In his second season, Chua found himself fighting for minutes against Salva and Frank Golla. With the same amount of minutes, he doubled his scoring average to 2.1 ppg, and recorded 1.8 rpg and 0.2 apg, playing second fiddle to the frontline duo of Al-Hussaini and Baclao.

In recent years, it took two years for Ateneo’s big men to suit up for Black’s frontline. Ford Arao waited two years to get a solid crack at the rotation. Al-Hussaini waited the same amount of time to become the team’s legitimate centerpiece.

Chua is filling in the big shoes nicely. For a team with no go-to guys, he leads the frontcourt in all departments.

“I won’t really accept the title ‘Best Big Man’. Give me maybe another year”, he says with a laugh. He attributes his success to hard work, but most of all, it’s his jump shots that make him deadly. Lefty big men with range are becoming a trend, with the likes of him and UP’s Magi Sison (and to a lesser extent, Adamson’s Michael Galinato) creating mismatches.

Contrary to what we know, his jumper has always been there. “When I was in the [Bacolod], everyone told me I had a good touch, but I didn’t really practice it. I always tried to force my shot inside the shaded lane.”

“I basically just listened to the coaches on the team, and that made all the difference,” he says.

With his rate of improvement, the Ateneo community has to be excited with what he might become next season. With Greg Slaughter’s introduction to the lineup, Chua reckons he’ll be switched to the power forward position, something he looks forward to since Slaughter is bound to attract the opposing teams’ defense.

“I’m going to be on the perimeter a lot. More shooting drills for me until then.”