Robert Lau Hui Yew
SIBU: As 2014 draws to an end, Squash Racquets Association of Sarawak (SRAS) president Robert Lau Hui Yew is pleased to note that the sport had capped another year of achievements for the state.
He attributed this success to the dedicated group of leaders, coaches, players and their parents.
“These are the people who have been playing a major role in ensuring that the development of squash continued to hog headlines news and we are confident that the grassroots development programme for the young players will continue to excel and the players raking in glory for the state,” he said.
Lau singled out Sarawak’s recent performance in the 16th Ong Beng Hee and Nicol David Trophy 2014 when the team made a breakthrough.
Nathan Kueh, the 11-year-old rising star from Miri, took the silver medal in the Boy’s Individual and then led Sibu’s Caleb Lau, Tommy Lau and Clifford Tay from Kuching to also obtain second spot in the team event.
The girl’s team, comprising Chloe Chieng from Miri and the Kuching trio of Natalie Sim, Zoe Ting and Rachel Kong beat Selangor to clinch third placing.
Lau said the results went beyond expectations.
“All these are testimony that the standard of our players are fast catching up with the players from the rest of the country,” he pointed out.
Sarawak, he believed, has an advantage in that players come from all the three main squash centres in Kuching, Sibu and Miri.
“Unlike other sports which tend to rely on players from one town only, in squash, it is a complete different story. Our players are more spread out and this gives us a bigger pool of players to pick for the major tournaments.”
“The whole idea here is to get the players from the whole state to get involved. This way, it will not only translate into a bigger pool of players to pick from but will also help foster closer rapport among the sports officials in Sarawak.”
Squash, Lau reiterated, has been successful because resources were evenly spread throughout the state and the talent sourced from everywhere, from Bau in Kuching Division to Batu Niah in Miri Division.
He also listed out the three-legged CMS Squash Circuit as an important tournament that had helped promote the development of the sport.
“Each year, we saw a bigger number of the players taking part in the CMS circuit. For the Miri-leg this year, the number of players had hit the century mark for the first time and this was indeed very encouraging.”
He said SRAS would continue to reach out to other communities in its bid to promote squash to all the communities.
He said this was the direct result of the grassroots development programme that was aggressively pursued by SRAS in the past three to four years.
On a more personal note, Lau was also elected as the President of South East Asia (SEA) Squash Federation in a Kuala Lumpur meeting in August.
Lau currently serves as deputy president of Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) and chairman of Squash Association of Sibu (SAS).
‘I feel deeply honored to be appointed to lead the first committee members of the SEA Squash Federation. With the appointment come the responsibilities and I pledge to carry out my duties in the best possible manner to ensure that squash sport will play a bigger role in the international arena,” he said.
Another Sarawakian Mohd Azlan Iskandar sits on the board as vice president while each of the nine other SEA countries has a representative
Lau’s immediate regional plan is to ensure that squash competitions are held annually in SEA countries.