Beat In Badminton...Badly

Today we toured the sports institute of Tianjin and met up with Daniel Konold, program coordinator for the American Culture Center for Sports. He has a really cool job doing research on American and Chinese sports to find out what makes certain sports popular and how to integrate sports that have little popularity in China. For example, football and baseball have immense popularity in the states, but almost none here. Table tennis and badminton dominate other sports and our group had the privilege of playing badminton with some of the students at the sports institute.
Never in my life have I been more covered in sweat than after my first one-on-one match. I challenged one of the girl students standing alone watching other people play, and if I had known she had professional skills I would've picked a different opponent. We started out with simple volleys back and forth above the head so it could be easily returned. Once we were warmed up, she brought the heat. She had me running from the net to the back line volley, after volley, after volley. It was like doing the shuttle run each time she swung her racket. Her skill of being able to place the birdie on the back line, and following it up with a light tap that barely cleared the net, must have taken years of practice. Dripping with sweat and nearly to the point of collapsing, I had to run to get some fresh air and throw some cold water on my face. Normally if I get beat that bad, I ask for a rematch, but I had to let that one go. I hope to play again soon.