During an afternoon badminton practice on Monday, March 10, sophomore Jeshurun Chen of the boys singles team challenged a fellow player, senior Ryan Pau for the number one position on the team.

While the varsity singles team holds four positions for the boys, Ryan Pau had completed tryouts by holding the rank of the number one player for singles.

However, since the beginning of the season, Pau had not been practicing as often as some other players.

As of last Monday, Chen had challenged Pau for his number one position on the team and coincidentally, won.

Pau said, “I haven’t been playing much and I don’t really remember how to play properly. So Jeshurun decided to challenge me for a number one spot in boys singles and he won. It wasn’t a big deal and honestly I’m not that surprised given that he does train sometimes.”

Chen had maintained his position of number two on the boys varsity singles team since his freshman year and was pleased to have advanced to the top position.

Chen said, “I felt like being number two wasn’t that bad before because I only played for the fun of the sport but now that I’m number one for the singles boys team, it feels good to be recognized as number one rather than number two. There is more respect toward higher positions.”

As a result of his loss, Pau would have taken Chen’s previous position as the number two player but instead, chose to switch teams.

Pau said, “Because of the loss, I decided to take an easier approach and play boys number one doubles with Kevin Liu as my partner. This way, we will both have to do less work on the court.”

Senior Jenny Chen of the girls singles team and Jeshurun Chen’s sister, stated that this challenge had also been one of the high points of the season thus far.

Jeshurun Chen stated, “In general, the matches during the season aren’t that exciting to be honest. I am personally looking forward to PALs and CCS and really hoping to place in CCS this year.”

Reflecting upon the challenge, Pau said, “Jeshurun is a good player.  He will most likely be the number one singles player for our league.”