Liew checks the monitor screen with SLTA deputy president cum tournament director Douglas Telajan (second left), SLTA secretary Bernard Chin (right) and treasurer Kho Siak Khoi in the SLTA office.— Photo by Teo Chi Wei
KUCHING: Providing strict security has become one of the top priorities for the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) in organising International Tennis Federation (ITF) events.
SLTA president Dato Patrick Liew said in fact it is now one of the criteria that the organiser of an ITF event has to fulfil before getting the green light to host any ITF event.
“ITF are very concerned with the security aspects and the safety of the players and officials in the ITF competitions,” he said during the press conference for the Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup Asia Oceania Final Qualifying events at SLTA meeting room on Thursday.
“The new condition is that whichever host country must take care of the safety of the participants. They want us to have security measures like in case of any incident we must have the telephone contacts of the officers in charge of the police, immigration and hospital or in the event of disaster like flood, snow and volcano eruption in some countries.”
Liew said security will be enhanced during the Junior Davis Cup Asia Oceania Final Qualifying from April 9 to 14 and the and Junior Fed Cup Asia Oceania Final Qualifying from April 15 to 21.
“We are placing security guards at the entrance where only those who display the passes issued by us are allowed to enter the SLTA Tennis centre,” said Liew, adding that accreditation passes would be issued to players, parents, the media and all officials.
Both tournaments are open to the public with supervision of security personnel.
Liew, who also heads the security team, said SLTA had spent about RM6,000 to improve the CCTV (closed circuit television) surveillance system by installing four more CCTV cameras, bringing the total of CCTV cameras to eight including the existing four. They will cover most of the angles clearly like the main entrance, office, lobby and the courts.
“With the CCTV system, we are able to track back the record if any incident happens. Many years ago, we had a player who lost his bag in the toilet.
“With the help of the CCTV footage, we managed to find out how the bag with the passports and money was stolen,” Liew recalled of the incident.
He said despite reminding the players many times, they are still careless in leaving their bags unattended.
“There was one incident during the 29th Sarawak Chief Minister Cup (I) ITF Junior Circuit (Grade 1) that a French player left his bag at the entrance and somebody took the bad and ran away. The empty bag was found at a petrol station later,” added Liew.
“This time, we will take extra security measures to ensure that no incident will happen during the tournaments. We want to keep a clean report card for ITF in order for us to bid for more tournaments in future. At the same time we want to build our reputation and credentials internationally and that is very important,” he said.