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BY SETH GREEN

In print | Published March 27, 2008

This past weekend, Swarthmore hosted over 15 schools for the 2008 USA Badminton National Collegiate Championship, and the Garnet did not disappoint. Kim Kramer ‘10 and Maithili Parikh ’11 reached the women’s doubles final on Sunday before falling to Daphne Ng and Teresa Lin from University of California Berkeley. The doubles team is thus ranked second in the nation, while the team earned an impressive fifth place finish.

Saturday featured many Garnet players in individual competition. Yimei Zou ‘10 lost to Daphne Ng, who went on to win the singles competition. Karma Lama ’09 lost to University of Illinois’ Lindsay Gibbel, who went on to be defeated in round three.

Kramer defeated Cindy Wang of Cornell University before succumbing in three tightly contested rounds to Shelley Chan of Princeton University.

Parikh defeated Sara White of Drexel University before falling in two rounds to Tiffany Prajudha of UC Irvine.

Alice Xiang ’10 also fell to Prajudha. Celeste Abou Negm ’09 lost to Alice Wen of Irvine.

On the men’s side, Cole Armstrong ’10 lost to eventual champion Nicholas Jinadasa of UC Irvine, and Robert Manduca ’10 lost to Harold Juang of UC San Diego.

In doubles competition, Manduca and Armstrong lost to a team from San Diego, as did Celeste and May Maani ’10. Kelly and Lama fell to a team from Berkeley. Xiang and Zou lost to a team from the Univesrity of Virginia.

Kramer and Parikh absolutely wiped the floor with a team from the University of Maryland, defeating them by scores of 21-3 and 21-2. Their dominance was only matched by their grace on the court and to their opponents following the matches.

They then faced a competitive team from San Diego, triumphing by 21-17 and 21-18. They lost one round to an Irvine duo, 14-21, before winning their next two 21-17 each. Their next round, against a Berkeley duo, was the most difficult yet. They lost their first match 12-21, before triumphing 21-17 and 21-19. In the finals, the duo succumbed to national champions Ng and Lin by 21-12 and 21-11.

“This is a huge deal. They beat west coast teams to get that title and went home with medals,” Kelly said of the doubles team’s impressive shwoing

Manduca said, “The weekend was really, really cool and fun. It was exciting to see the best badminton players in the country come here just to show us how awesome they are.”

Speaking of great players, Abou Negm was every excited to see an Olympic competitor, Nicholas Jinadasa, in the Lamb Miller Field House. Jinadasa, of UC Irvine, taped over the “USA” on his jersey and replaced it with “UCI.” He went on to capture first place in the men’s singles competition.

Kramer, who entered the weekend ranked 15th in the nation, said that overall, the weekend went well. “It was really great to have it at Swat,” Kramer said of the home court advantage.

It was a big improvement over Kramer’s “hellish” trip to the 2007 Nationals at Berkeley, in which her flight was delayed and her luggage was lost.

Having it at Swarthmore was a great bonding experience for the team, she said.

Speaking about the matches, Kramer called the competition tough, noting that it was a “whole other level of play” for many on the Swarthmore team, pitting people who started playing in college against opponents who have been playing since they were five.

Kramer has been playing badminton for much longer than many others on the team. When she was in elementary school, she went to her local recreational center, and, not enjoying classes in soccer, swimming or basketball, picked badminton.

Unfortunately, that class pitted people of all skill levels against each other, including a pair that went on to be a very highly ranked men’s doubles team. Her mother then e-mailed the coach, who agreed to give Kramer private lessons until she caught on. “After two or three, I was completely hooked.” Along the way, her mother picked up the sport and her father became an umpire (all competitive matches are umpired).

When asked what she plans to do with badminton after college, Kramer said, “I really don’t know.” She is also trained as an umpire and would like to be certified to umpire international rounds. “Umpiring at the Olympics would be fantastic,” she said.

“Honestly, I want to spend my life coaching,” she said, though admitting that the finances of full-time coaching are difficult. There are, however, full-time badminton clubs in California, and Kramer hopes to work out on the west coast if everything goes according to plan.

Surely, many Swatties can sympathize with pursuing a dream that might make a two-car garage lifestyle difficult, but perhaps only Kramer’s is dependent on whizzing birdies.

Captain Patricia Kelly was delighted with the encouraging results of the tournaments and the season. “The running of the tournament was said to be one of the best ever experienced,” she said.

This concludes the season for the Swarthmore badminton team. It was a very successful one, and the ending could hardly have been sweeter. “This has truly been one of the best badminton seasons here and I appreciate all the support that was showed by Swatties that came out to support. We received cupcakes and other cheers that really encouraged us to perform as well. I could never thank Swarthmore enough and thank my team enough for making my last season the best,” Patricia Kelly said.

Disclosure Note: Robert Manduca is Photo Editor for The Phoenix but had no role in the production of this article.

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