ORANGE - She faces not one opponent, but dozens of them.
Canadian, Japanese, Filipino, Malaysian, Chinese and Korean badminton players sprint and smash shuttlecocks on the courts in the Orange County Badminton Club.
The competitors – with their spiffy uniforms, stone-cold faces and cushy sponsorships such as China's support from FedEx – seem intimidating, but pigtailed 21-year-old Eva Lee mentally blocks them out.
She deftly bats a shuttlecock against a wall in the far corner of the building until it's time for her and partner Howard Bach to play against a pair of lithe Japanese players.
As the game begins the Japanese team misses two of Eva's serves.
"Go Howard! Go Eva!" yells a fan in the bleachers.
The mostly Asian crowd roars when Howard jumps in the air and slams a birdie with his racquet and groans when an opponent smashes the feathery object at Eva. She is like a poker player on the court – her emotions apparent only when she taps her racquet on her forehead after a bad play and pumps her fist after a good one.
Eva and Howard swiftly beat their opponents in two sets. It takes 25 minutes.
But they need to defeat two more teams to win gold, and many more opponents to reach their ultimate destination, the Olympics.
Crowd favorites, Eva and Howard earned a gold medal at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last month and will likely do well at this U.S. Open Championship tournament. Unlike their international competitors, who consider the sport a full-time profession, American badminton players get modest payoffs.
U.S. players do not earn sexy multimillion-dollar contracts, government sponsorships or adoring fans that other athletes enjoy. Howard works at Home Depot. Eva lives with her parents and doesn't have a job.
The sport remains relatively obscure in the U.S., knocked as a backyard hobby one plays with a beer in one hand.
But Olympic hopefuls still have to make incredible sacrifices to excel, such as giving up school, careers and family time.
You might not believe what educational opportunities Eva had to put on hold.
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At 11, Eva picked up the game from her parents, who were avid badminton players.
Eva, who lived in Cupertino, was a natural athlete in many sports but concentrated on badminton, assuming it would be easier to play: It was an indoor sport, and she'd get the support of her parents.
At the time there were no badminton clubs in Northern California where she could seek in-depth training. She practiced at a high school gym where her mother coached the sport and honed her skills with older players.
One year at a junior nationals competition, Eva earned a Triple Crown title after beating more experienced, previous national junior team members. As a 14-year-old freshman, she won the Central Coast girls' singles championship.
Don Chew, owner of the Orange County Badminton Club, noticed Eva's potential. He offered her free training and a sponsorship. It was an opportunity for Eva to receive comprehensive training at a mecca for budding players.
In 2001, the Lee family moved to Orange, near the training facility. Eva competed on Villa Park High School's badminton team and won CIF singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles.
After high school, she enrolled at UC San Diego to pursue a bioengineering degree. Badminton took a back seat, as Eva considered quitting the sport to pay more attention to her studies.
But she ultimately couldn't give up badminton. She had a chance to pursue a spot on the Olympic team, and she didn't want to let it slip through her fingers.
She transferred to UC Irvine to go back to her rigorous training schedule at the club. She soon put school on hold to devote more time to training. Her reasoning: She could go back to school anytime but would have few opportunities to go to the Olympics.
She trained five hours daily, making the club a second home. Her coaches smashed thousands of birdies at her and played beside her at competitions. The head coach, Zi Min Cai, remained by her side, waving his hands wildly and speaking in "Chinglish," or a mixture of Chinese and English.
"Her technique is good," Cai said recently. "I played against Eva in practice. It's hard. Crossing and crossing. I tell her: ‘No hurry to attack, no hurry to smash. If you're not nervous, you do well.' "
Eva became the first U.S. badminton player to earn three gold medals in singles, doubles and mixed doubles competitions at the Pan Am games. Her reward? A not yet released Sony Ericsson cell phone she earned after striking a deal with her parents.
"You win, and you feel embarrassed that you're in front of a lot of people," Eva said. "But the feeling of everything you've done is worth it."
A few weeks after the Pan Am games, Eva was back in Orange, preparing for the U.S. Open. She couldn't let her success get to her head.
"For us, one tournament is one tournament," she said. "The next one is start from zero. We try to set the mentality that you start all over again, so that way we don't feel pressure from before."
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Eva, who had lost early during singles and women's double games, is pumped with confidence after she and Howard win the match against the Japanese.
The next day, they defeat Filipino player Minarti Timur and American partner Tony Gunawan, one of Eva's coaches. The win lets Eva and Howard move on to the finals against Keita Masuda and Miyuki Maeda, another intense pair from Japan.
"This is my job when I'm on the court," Eva said. "It helps to clarify that this is what I'm supposed to do when I'm here. It's really an experience for me."
It is her first Grand Prix final, and she doesn't want to flub. It's important for her to play well to earn more points toward qualifying for the Olympics.
Nerves – and lack of luck – get the better of Eva.
"It was more like as we go along, just try no matter what," she said. "Towards the end, there were a couple shots that we were unlucky with."
The pair win the first set but lose the second two. The Japanese team earns gold.
It doesn't spell the end for Eva, who leaves today with her teammates to compete in Olympic qualifying tournaments in Japan and Taipei, Taiwan. She will continue to play in tournaments through April to vie for more points and qualify for the ultimate games in Beijing.
She'll have to be one of 32 highest-ranking badminton players in the world to go.
"I think for us, it's representing the U.S. in a prestigious tournament," she said. "Being able to make my dream come true would be the coolest thing."
