THE ATENEO Blue and Lady Eagles took pride in their team’s “Queen Eagle,” Bianca Carlos as she emerged as the sole podium finisher from the Blue and White in the 13th FDG Cup.
During the 4-day competition held on June 9- 12 at the Powersmash Badminton Court in Makati and Robinsons Ermita Midtown Atrium in Manila, Carlos successfully remained undefeated in the Women’s Singles Open division, consequently bagging the gold medal and Php 50,000.00 prize money.
The celebrated victory
Carlos entered the competition in both the Women’s Singles and Mixed Doubles events, pairing with top-ranking Malaysian player, Mohd Arif Abdul Latif in the latter. The prized Lady Eagle kick-started her game with a win from her singles event, sweeping the match in 2 straight sets, 21- 3, 21-7.
While Carlos was keeping up a good start with her strong suit in singles, pairing up with Latif— a silver medalist in the 28th Southeast Asian Games and the tourney’s champion in the Men’s Singles— gave her a greater advantage in knocking out her opponents in the Mixed Doubles events. Together, Carlos and Latif swept two consecutive games in 2 sets, scoring 21- 4, 22-20 in the first and 22- 20, 24- 22 in the second.
However, the dynamic duo failed to bypass the podium finishing pair composed of national team players John Gregg Paz and Aires Amor Montilla, losing to them in 2 sets, 21- 18, 21- 13.
The loss in the mixed doubles event did not affect the prized Shuttler’s dominance in the singles events. Carlos was able to make it to the semifinals where she was pitted against Philippines’ top seed in women’s singles, Sarah Joy Barredo. The highly anticipated duel between the two players resulted to a 3- set thriller favor of Carlos, 17- 21, 21- 11, 21- 10. Carlos taking the champion title for the Blue and White.
Dynamic match- ups
Although Carlos claimed the spotlight for the team, the Ateneo shuttlers produced favorable results. In preparation for the tournament, the Katipunan- based squad was given an opportunity to train with Indonesian players sent by their benefactor and the tournament’s host, Frederick D. Go.
“Technically speaking, [they] are better than us in terms of skills. They’ve been training longer than us and training with them gets us to improve and experience more varieties of shots,” explains men’s team captain Clarence Filart. “Siyempre, when we got to Ateneo, we’ve been playing with each other and having [a] chance to play with people from other countries helps us improve.”
Although singles players Filart, Carlos, Fides Bagasbas, Sean Chan, Samantha Ramos, Carlo Remo, and Cassie Lim continued to enter into the singles open event, the whole team was encouraged to participate in the doubles matches with their Indonesian counterparts.
Among the team members who agreed to this arrangement were the aforementioned Carlos—Latif tandem, Bagasbas, who was paired with Christofle Brians, Cassie Lim with Ihsan Wirawan and Remo with Ryan Hutabarat, who were able to advance until the quarterfinals.
With the FDG Cup being one of the most prestigious badminton competitions in the local setting, the main challenge encountered by the Ateneo team and their guest players was being set against national badminton players in both their singles and doubles events.
The team was able to advance to their next games in the first round of the eliminations, however, with the equal spread of collegiate- level and national- level players in the open category, most of the blue and lady shuttlers were eliminated when pitted against the top- rankers of Philippine badminton.
For UAAP ‘79
As the UAAP Season ’79 opening inches closer, the Blue and Lady Eagles did not take this competition lightly as they invested plenty of time to training and preparing for this major tune-up game.
“We made sure that we were prepared for this tournament,” says Carlos. “It is here that we gauge [ourselves], [like,] I played with people coming from La Salle and UP, so dito nakikita kung nasaan na kami and ano na ang level namin for UAAP (here, we are able to see where we are and what are level is for UAAP).”
Despite the fallbacks from losing to the national team players, team captain Filart remains optimistic about the outcome of the team’s performance in the upcoming season ’79.
“In the UAAP, with other players from other schools graduating, we have a better chance of winning this year than last year,” says Filart. “[And] since a number of our strong players now are 2nd year, they have more experience in UAAP, so we have better chances this year.”
Editor’s Note: Frederick D. Go was the GUIDON Editor-in-Chief in S.Y. 1988- 1989.
