Mohd Azlan retires from PSA World Tours

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KUALA LUMPUR: National number one men’s squash player Mohd Azlan Iskandar yesterday announced his retirement from international professional squash tournaments namely The Professional Squash Association (PSA) World Tours with immediate effect.

The PSA is a governing body for world men’s squash and is also an affiliate of the World Squash Federation, which governs squash at international level, for both men and women. The 30-year old Sarawakian, who has been a member of PSA since 2000, said he would focus on development of the country’s squash and expanding his squash academy, the Azlan Iskandar Squash Academy (AISA).

The 2010 Asian Games gold medallist said he made the difficult decision after doing some serious thinking for six months due to several factors including battling with several injuries and the frequent travels abroad for the last 14 years.

“It’s a bit frustating to retire  at this early age (30) but I’m happy to have achieved some of the goals in my career that I had set since I was a boy,” he told a press conference here yesterday.

“However, I will still compete in local tournaments, and if the country needs me to play for the Asian Games in South Korea and the Commonwealth Games in Scotland in 2014, I will play,” said the twice winner of the Asian Champsinship.

Touching on AISA, he said the academy has a few branches in Malaysia namely in Kuala Lumpur, Kedah, Melaka, Sarawak and Terengganu with students enrolment reaching 1,000, and that there were  plans to expand it to Negeri Sembilan and Kelantan by end of this year.

“My aim when I opened up this academy was not to produce world champions but to get more people to enjoy the game of squash, and if they want to compete in tournaments, I will give them my full support.

Mohd Azlan also reiterated his call to see squash being contested in the 2020 Olympic Games since the International Olympics Committee (IOC) had turned down the game and picked up rugby and golf instead for the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. — Bernama