Jason Ho-Shue's father would have been proud.
In an all-Ontario battle for men's singles gold Wednesday on the Canada Winter Games badminton court at the Northern Sport Centre, the 16-year-old from Markham, Ont., recovered from an opening-game loss to Andrew D'Sousa of Ottawa and won the next two games to take the match 11-21, 21-12, 21-17.
Ho-Shue gained confidence off his wicked jump smashes and quick reactions at the net and jumped ahead 11-2 in the second game. The 20-year-old D'Sousa knew he was in tough against his younger opponent, but made too many unforced errors to stem the tide, hitting the net or landing shots outside the court.
"In the first set I was a bit nervous coming into the final and I just thought about what he was getting me on, what I can do and what I can change to get some points - I just wanted to stay in the rally and not make mistakes," said Ho-Shue.
"Andrew is an amazing player. I've beaten him twice and he's beaten me twice but I think maybe these two times were just luck. It's really hard to play against him.
"I think I won it in the sense of spirit with my mental play and my passion to give it my all and never give up. I tried to mix up my shots to put pressure on him and force him to make a mistake and make him get nervous."
Ho-Shue is now 2-2 in his career against D'Sousa, Canada's No. 1-ranked adult singles player.
When Ho-Shue was 12, his father died of a heart attack while playing badminton and son nearly quit the game but decided to dedicate himself even more to his sport and ended up winning the provincial under-14 title that year.
Ho-Shue is not afraid to show his emotions on the court and he let out a big yell when D'Sousa hit into the net to set up match point. D'Sousa bounced one off the net to get the serve back. On his serve return, Ho-Shue flipped the shuttle off the net, forcing D'Sousa to lean to the right and with the other side of the court open, Ho-Shue punched through with his racquet close to the net to end it.
"He started a bit slowly and he woke up and that kind of threw me off," said D'Sousa. "It's always tough to play him because he's really fast and powerful. He was getting me in awkward spots and weird corners and he made me twist and turn a bit and made me go for it a little too much at the end. I went for stuff at the wrong time."
Team Ontario has dominated the Canada Games tournament, with Ontario athletes facing each other in the men's and women's singles and men's doubles finals. Rachel Honderich of Toronto defeated Brittney Tam of Markham 2-0 (21-16, 23-21) in the gold-medal singles match.
"This is one of my biggest victories, for sure," said the 18-year-old Honderich. "It's my first multi-sport games and to come out with the gold, I'm really happy."
Tam, 17, led the second game 16-13 but made several unforced errors to allow Honderich back into it. Tam went deep on her return and caught the line to tie it at 21, but Honderich followed through with an aggressive swat at the net and on the ensuing return Tam went long.
"I was feeling a bit tired and it's always close between us so to finish it in two games is exciting because I know it could have gone either way," said Honderich. "We've played too many times to count in a lot of provincial and national tournaments since we were 12. Our clubs are only 10 minutes away from each other.
"We were really excited going into the match because we knew Ontario would finish 1-2 and our goal was to help Ontario catch up to Quebec in the overall medal standings."
Tam won gold later in the day in mixed doubles with Nyl Yakura of Pickering, Ont., beating Joshua Yu of Toronto and Vivian Kwok of Stouffville, Ont., 2-1 (22-24, 21-17, 21-8). Mixed bronze went to Ty Lindeman/Takeisha Wang of Alberta over Ann-Julie Beaulieu Felix DeBlois-Beaucage of Quebec.
In the men's doubles championship, Yu and Yakura beat Andy Ko/Nathan Osbourne of Alberta 2-0 (21-18, 21-19) for gold. B.C. boys Duncan Yao and Joshua Liu won bronze 2-1 (21-19, 18-21, 21-19) over Alberta's Lindeman/Austin Bauer.
In the men's singles bronze match, James Ho of Surrey defeated Kevin Barkman of Steinbach, Man., 2-1 (21-13, 18-21, 21-7, while Kyleigh O'Donoghue of Calgary topped Quingzi Ouyang of Vancouver for bronze in women's singles, winning 2-1 (21-18. 9-21, 23-21).
In the all-Quebec women's doubles final, Anne-Julie Beaulieu/Nadianie Ouaqouaq defeated Vicky Gerard-Simmons/Alexandra Mocanu 2-1 (17-21, 21-15, 21-11), while Valerie Cheung/Erin O'Donoghue won the all-Alberta women's doubles bronze final 2-0 (21-11, 23-21) over Wang/Kyleigh O'Donoghue.
