KUCHING: National player Aslina Chua will spearhead the Malaysian challenge in the 21st Sarawak Chief Minister Cup (I) ITF Junior Tennis Championship (Grade 1) at the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) Tennis Centre here from Mar 12-17.
ITF ranked No. 536, the 17-year-old from Kuching, who played in the recent BMW Malaysian Open as a wildcard entry, has been given the wildcard to play in the main draw of the girls competition starting next Tuesday.
Another Malaysian player who has received a wild card is ITF No. 620 Alyssa Boey while Sarawakian Choo Lyn Yuen, ITF No. 401, will play in the qualifying.
“We will look at the closing of the registration of players at 6pm tomorrow and decide who are the other three players that will be given wildcards. Morgane Michiels of Belgium is the third player who has been given a wildcard,” said SLTA president Dato Patrick Liew on Friday.
“The players in the girls qualifying shall play one match to advance to the main draw if there are no new entries.”
He said six more wildcards will be given to the boys and this will also be decided on Saturday afternoon.
“Our player Ahmad Deedat Abdul Razak who is ITF No. 282 will probably get one wildcard to play in the main draw,” added Liew.
The Malaysian boys looking to qualify to the main draw are Augustine Chang Tun Sien, Rohizat Achop Borhan Janang, Aliff Nasir and Muhammad Faris Iqmal Kamaruddin.
Hsu Ching-Wen of Chinese Taipei is the top ranked player in the boys main draw at ITF No. 7 while the ITF No. 2 player from Serbia Nikola Milojevic is the top ranked player in the girls main draw.