U6600 02/19 The Incredibles I vs. SF CRS

(Peter Chen, Terry Tam, Spencer Chase, Michael Sung, Ming Zhang, Jim Chai)(Michael and Peter. Photos courtesy of Dan Lin)

The incredible winning streak of the MSC teams has been snapped!

Before the sad evening, MSC teams had won ten team contests in a row. On 2/19, there were four team contests scheduled and they won three of them. The fourth one between San Francisco CRS and the Incredibles turned out to be heart breaking.

Michael of the Incredibles had a great start. He beat the legendary Peter Chen fairly easily. However, Ming was in trouble versus Terry. In the first game, Ming had a commanding lead with several game points. However, Terry disrespected the hostile environment to save the game at 15-13. Terry got the momentum and won the 2nd game quickly. Ming did not give up though. He managed to recoup immediately winning the next two games to tie the match. Alas! Terry pulled it through in the final game to win the match!

The doubles match is always crucial in a team contest. Ming and the Incredibles Captain Jim came back from down 1-2 to win the match. They would have lost the match 0:3 hadn't they won their second game 15-13. Now, all Incredibles had to do was win one more match to extend the winning streak to 14!

At this point, the other three contests were over. It was well past 9PM and MSC would close at 10PM! A request to extend the hour to the City attendant had been made.

Spencer from San Francisco CRS turned out to be a party pooper! He did not seem to be bothered by driving from San Francisco to southbay after work in a raining night. He determined to stop the Incredibles and he did. Michael's power forehand worked flawlessly earlier wasn't as effective with Spencer's short-pips.

Now, it came down to the decisive match between Jim and Peter. Peter's longpips caused lots of troubles to Jim's shortpips. The style mismatch put Jim in a difficult situation. Peter was the man of the night!

Instead of celebration, 12 of the Incredibles entourage went to lick the wounds in a restaurant until midnight. After all, they still had to eat!

MSC - the Incredibles I lost to San Francisco CRS 2-3

• Michael over Peter 3:0 (11-9, 11-7, 11-7)
• Ming lost to Terry 2:3 (13-15, 5-11, 11-6, 12-10, 6-11)
• Jim/Ming over Terry/Spencer 3:2 (10-12, 15-13, 6-11, 11-6, 11-3)
• Michael lost to Spencer 1:3 (7-11, 11-6, 11-13, 4-11)
• James lost to Peter 0:3 (3-11, 4-11, 5-11)