Malaysians will prevail

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LOCAL HOPEFUL: With the luck of the draw, Aslina Chua, ITF’s No. 661 ranked player may proceed further than just the first round in the upcoming 20th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (II) ITF junior tennis championship (Grade 3) to be held at SLTA centre from Oct 29 to Nov 4.

SLTA chief confident junior players can make impact at CM’s Cup

KUCHING: Malaysian players competing in the 20th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (II) ITF junior tennis championship (Grade 3) are expected to give their foreign counterparts a good run for their money.

Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) president, Dato Patrick Liew expressed his confidence on the local tennis aces’ outing in the exciting event.

“They would not probably win the championship but most of our players will not be suffering 6-0, 6-0 defeats as experienced in previous years,” he said.

“Our talented juniors are being groomed for the international competitions and Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia had sent national junior players for training overseas,” said Liew who is also a vice president of the national tennis body.

He is hoping that players like ITF No. 609 ranked Ahmad Deedat Abdul Razak Abdul Razak from Selangor who had just attended a training camp in Spain, would advance to the second round.

“With the luck of the draw, Aslina Chua, ITF No. 661 and Choo Lyn Yuen (ITF No. 1100) can get through too,” he enthused.

Choo, an unseeded Sarawakian who is now playing in the ITF Juniors Ipoh tennis championships in Perak has secured berth in the girls’ singles final and will play against seventh seed Alexandria Grinchishina of Kazakhstan today.

Nevertheless, SLTA felt the Kuching event will serve as a very good platform for local juniors to compete at higher level and for the association to prove its capability in hosting international competitions.

Apart from Deedat, Chua and Choo, other Malaysians in the national line-up are Colin Wong Wei Ming (ITF No. 642), unranked Tan Zu Zinyang, Augustine Chang Tun Sien, Low Kar Win, Low Zhe Han, Ti Jia Wei (ITF No. 1072), Alyssa Boey (ITF No. 1094) and Nurin Nabilah Roslan (ITF No. 1358).

Dato Patrick Liew

Starting Monday, 81 players including 37 girls from 20 countries are competing in the championship to be held at SLTA tennis centre until Nov 4.

Countries taking part are Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, US and Uzbekistan.

Tournament top seeds for boys and girls are Cem Ilkel (ITF No. 94) and Ipek Soylu (ITF No. 69) both from Turkey.