By Kuang Shane Qi (19A13A) and Loh Lin (19A01D)
Photos courtesy of Brendon Loo (19S03H) from Raffles Photographic Society

It takes 19 minutes for the whistle to blow its most important signal. At the sound, our players drop back and steel themselves for the next round against the backdrop of cheers from the Hwa Chong supporters. The first goal has landed, and it is not ours.

By Caryn Chiah (19A01A) and Shivani (20S06R)
Photos courtesy of Vivien He (20S03N)

It is 7:39am on a Thursday. Some have been in school for a while, and now sit in the parade square, bobbing along to whatever music democracy chose on Instagram the night before. Others join the panicked dash up the stairs, courting time and luck to arrive at their classes before the bell rings. In the mass of over 2000 students, you would hardly notice the absence of 11 girls. Yet, inconspicuously or not, there are 11 empty spaces where 11 tanned girls, 11 large duffle bags, and 22 tennis racquets are decidedly missing.

By Jerome Tay (20S06Q) and Valerie Tan (20A01E)
Photos courtesy of Squash

The Kallang Squash and Tennis Centre does not seem like a place used for sports at all. It is modest, unnoticeable—a small building in the middle of nowhere, overshadowed by the much grander stadiums surrounding it in the area. One looking at it would hardly imagine that tough battles of brain and brawn had been fought here, within the four-walled glass towers that housed the squash matches of Singapore’s young athletes. Perhaps that could be forgiven; squash, after all, is not a very common sport. But what it lacks in fame and prestige it makes up for in its sheer intensity, as was proven on 2 May: the day of the Squash Boys’ Finals 2019, where Raffles Institution (RI) and Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC) met each other in a fight for third place.