Siblings Netting Success

Their complaints are typical brother-sister fare: He says she spends all day talking on the phone. She says he’s always hogging the bathroom.

Other than that, Danh and Doan Nguyen are about as buddy-buddy as any brother-sister pair could be. As long as they stay on opposite sides of the badminton court, that is.

Danh, a senior, and Doan, a junior, are two of the best badminton players at Estancia. But don’t expect to see the Nguyens team up for mixed doubles anytime soon.

“They’d kill each other,” Estancia Coach Lillian Brabander says.

Or at least volley bad vibes each other’s way. Apparently, it’s been a rough relationship from the first time they tried batting a birdie around in their back yard four years ago. They had watched their sister, An, play for Estancia, so they figured they’d give the sport a try.

“An told me they put up a string in the back yard for a net, but they’d never finish a game,” Brabander said. “They’d always get in a fight and go inside.”

The cause of their troubles?

“I get mad pretty easy,” Danh says.

“He gets mad real easy,” says Doan.

“I want to play with him, but he argues.”

Danh: “I always yell. I hate losing.”

Doan: “Yeah, when he makes a mistake, he blames it on me .”

Danh: “I yell. She quits.”

Doan: “I just drop the bird and walk out, really.”

Danh: “I yelled at my (doubles) partner two years ago, then he got good. I didn’t have to yell at him anymore. This year, I have a new partner, so I yell a lot.”

Apparently, their shouting matches have done little to hurt each other’s success. At last year’s Southern Section championships, Danh teamed with Lan Ly to win the open doubles title, and Doan and Ly won the mixed. Doan won the mixed title as a freshman, too, with the help of Ly’s cousin, Huang, currently one of the top players in the nation.

Brabander says both Nguyens are aggressive, quick and intelligent--perhaps the three most important attributes in badminton. Because they only started playing seriously when they got to high school, Danh, 17, and Doan, 16, still have plenty of room to improve.

Like many Vietnamese, Danh and Doan were forced with their families to flee their homeland and its Communist rule for the United States. Although they were only 7 and 6 when they fled Saigon, Danh and Doan say they remember every detail of their harrowing trip, from the early morning hour when their mother woke them and told them to get dressed because “they were going shopping,” to watching the boat captain accept the gold pieces before he let the 100 or so refugees cram into the small vessel.

Two days into their journey across the South China Sea, the boat’s engine broke down and they were left to drift, running out of food and water by the third day. Nearly a week later, after being passed and ignored by several large ships, they landed on a small island off the Philippines. Tragically, Danh and Doan’s mother did not survive the trip.

Today, they live with their father in a small, Costa Mesa apartment. They share cooking and cleaning duties, usually without complaint. Both have A averages in school, and for the first time, are taking the same class (college-level chemistry) together.

“We even study together,” Doan says. “I thought it wouldn’t work out, but it did. Now, if only we can work out the badminton.”

1992 Badminton Preview

Top teams: Bolsa Grande, Buena Park, Estancia, Fountain Valley, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Katella, Kennedy and Loara.

Top players: Thu Diep (Bolsa Grande), Linh Doan (Estancia), Concha Gil (Estancia), Sang Kim (Garden Grove), Anh Loi (Ocean View), Chau Nguyen (Estancia), Danh Nguyen (Estancia), Doan Nguyen (Estancia), Don Nguyen (Bolsa Grande), Toan Nguyen (Bolsa Grande), Cong Ta (Bolsa Grande), Ruth Yau (Bolsa Grande).

Important dates: Estancia tournament, March 20-21; Cypress tournament, March 27-28; Southern Section individual championships, May 23; Southern Section team championships, May 28.

Notes: After winning the Southern Section team championship last year, Estancia is once again the team to beat. The Eagles, who dominated the Yonex Garden Grove Classic two weeks ago, have most of their top players returning, and plenty of depth. Estancia Coach Lillian Brabander, who started the program at the school 25 years ago, said she will retire after this season. Brabander, who is also girls’ athletic director, coached the Eagles to three section championships and two second-place finishes. . . . Vicki Toutz, in her 20th year of coaching at Garden Grove, was a coach at the Olympic Festival in Los Angeles last summer and currently serves as international competition chairman for the U.S. badminton team. . . . After Estancia, top finishers in the Garden Grove Classic were Bolsa Grande, Katella, Buena Park and Garden Grove.