As Paly’s badminton team readies itself for the upcoming competitive season, its members will welcome many new recruits to the team. However, what some teammates haven’t realized yet is that one of these young players, freshman Karine Hsu, is a national champion in the under-15 age group. With her skills, experience, and athletic talent, Hsu could be the rising star of Paly badminton.
Hsu gained her early badminton skills at the Bintang Badminton Academy in Sunnyvale, where she trained with a private teacher beginning at age nine. Showing visible potential as a new competitive player, she was invited to join the Bintang team to participate in local tournaments, such as the Bay Area Open in February 2006 and 2007.
“I always get really nervous,” Hsu said about her matches, “but my coach and my parents are always around me, cheering and telling me to stay calm. You just have to learn to maintain the right mentality.”
Hsu views these local tournaments, which can be held as frequently as once or twice a month, as practices for even more prestigious events, such as the Junior Nationals and certain competitions on the international level.
Tournaments like the Winter Junior International Championships, which Hsu first attended in Los Angeles in December 2004, remain among her most memorable early experiences. According to Hsu, though she lacked serious competitive knowledge at the time, she surprised herself by winning a third-place title in girls’ doubles and fifth place for her performance in girls’ singles. She also competed in Junior Internationals last year in Boston.
“I wasn’t that competitive yet, but my first Junior International tournament was really fun,” Hsu said. “Now I have a lot of friends from playing in these tournaments.”
Hsu currently trains extensively outside of school at the Smash City badminton center in Milpitas. Training at least two hours a day, five days a week, she returns home at around 11:30 p.m. on a typical night, exhausted after agility drills, physical conditioning, and weight training. Because of this rigorous individual practice, Hsu suspects that attending additional practices with the Paly team may be too demanding. She made a special arrangement with the Paly badminton coach to exempt her from attending practices, but Hsu will compete as a member of the Paly badminton team.
“It might be too much,” Hsu said of competing both in and out of school badminton events. “There’s a lot of pressure because of what people expect me to do.”
Moving onto the high school academic scene will also complicate Hsu’s already-crammed schedule as educational responsibilities begin to take precedence. However, Hsu struggles to decide where her focus lies, as she now has the chance to enter higher tournaments that she was previously too young to compete in. Split between academic and athletic pursuits, Hsu is reluctant to commit to a single path in spite of her parents’ suggestions that she dedicate herself to schoolwork.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it later on,” Hsu said. “I don’t know what my homework load will be like. My mom was really concerned because badminton takes up so much time, but it’s not something I’d want to give up.”
In spite of the major choices that Hsu must face in the near future, she refuses to imagine relinquishing her passion for either badminton or learning, but instead aims to find a place for both.
“I’d probably give up other things,” Hsu said. “If it’s something I really like, I’m not going to give it up. I don’t think it’s necessary to give up something you enjoy.”
As a rising talent garnering attention in the badminton community at large, Hsu dreams of eventually having a shot at the Olympics, but at this time in her life the stress might not fit into her career goals. What matters to Hsu is earning success both on and off the court.
“I know someone who gave up school to train for the Olympics,” Hsu said, “but I don’t want to do that because I’d like a career in science. I also think it’d be cool to coach people at a community center.”
Hsu recently competed in the qualification trials for the Pan American Junior Championship, an international tournament that brings together athletes from throughout the Americas. The championship will take place in August in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Hsu anticipates the competition with mixed feelings.
“There are always conflicts with my summer schedule,” Hsu said, “[but] I want to go to Pan-Ams [Pan American Junior Championship] because maybe later I won’t have this kind of time, and I might not have another opportunity.”
Hsu’s goals for badminton at Paly, on the other hand, are simple: she hopes she can popularize the sport and, most of all, enjoy sharing it with others.
A common misconception in the Bay Area, according to Hsu, is that badminton is a region-specific game.
“It’s generally considered an Asian sport,” Hsu said, “but it’s actually very popular in places like Denmark and the Netherlands. I get frustrated sometimes when people say it’s not as hard a sport as others. When I say I play badminton, one response I get a lot is, ‘Oh really? I play that in my backyard.’ But I love this sport so much. It’s kind of become a part of me.”