On 26.09.2020 Zadar won it’s first medal in U17 Croatian national Badminton league.
Badminton Zadar sent 2 young boys, Marino Marčina and Vito Ivanišević, to compete in the second leg of Croatian national badminton league. Vito played MS, while Marino participated in MS and XD. In XD Marino paired with Nika Matovina from BK Koprivnica. They paired for the first time and both were playing XD for the first time. Without practice, it was a tough task ahead of them.
Marino and Nika won their first match easily at 21-8, 21:11. The 2nd match was against the 2nd seeded pair for the tournament. They lost the match, but mostly due to the new combination and lack of experience. The 2nd game was very close before they lost the match at 21-14, 22-20 . For the 3rd position, they lost the first game 20:22. Once again it was about settling their nerves and finding their rhythm together as a pair. They improved slowly and won the 2nd game at 21:18. Getting into the flow, they were quite relaxed and gaining confidence. This further helped to improve their game as was evident in the last game, which they won comfortably at 21:12 and happily walked to the podium for their well deserved medal.
In singles Marino and Vito got the first match setup against each other. Vito fought hard, but lost to Marino a very close match at 21:19, 23:21. Second match for Marino was up against 2nd seeded player, Roko Pipunić, in the list. Once again due to lack of experience and training, he lost the first game easily at 21:8. Staying positive, he improved in the 2nd, but unfortunately lost very close at 21:19. Roko went on to win the title. Marino then had a combination of loss and win and ended up being 7th.
Having lost to Marino, Vito moved to the lower ring. But not being a badminton player and only occasionally playing badminton it was not going to be easy for him. Before the start of the tournament, we had a discussion with Vito and developed a plan. Now, what has left to be seen is how much he can follow that and stay focussed on it despite the results on score card. It was not easy for him, but with regular encouragement and reminders, he more or less kept his focus. This helped him to win the 2nd and 3rd match in 3 sets with 17-21, 21-18, 23-21 and 18-21, 21-15, 21-8 respectively. He took 9th place, which is not bad for an occasional player competing for the first time in national against players who have regular trainings.
We at Badminton Zadar are very satisfied with results that boys achieved. More than the results, we are happy that they showed interest and courage to participate in the tournament at national level. With no training at all and only with alignment on goals and keeping focus on the goal during the game, brought the results to them. This shows how important is mental training for sports. Our hope is that this experience will motivate them to enrol in regular trainings. We know our limitations, but we are confident that with dedication and focussed quality training will improve their game a lot. That improvement in their game will help develop their confidence and thus motivation in a self-promoting cycle.
We would also like to thank Badminton club Koprivnica and Nika Motovina to partner with Marino Marčina. We hope to keep this partnership and develop it further at next opportunity. Till then let’s practice.
