KUCHING: The two legs of the ITF Asian 14 and Under Championships here over the past two weeks had to put up with of the some of the foulest weather to have lashed the city in a long while.Overcast skies threatened to hold up play from day one and as the tournament wore on, the weather waxed an irascible spoilsport, washing out whole day schedules to pile up a huge backlog of uncontested or half-finished matches.
However, despite the fickle weather, the championship was brought to a close on schedule – much to the relief of the organisers, officials and above all, the players who must have found the almost daily rain-induced disruption of matches a mental torture.
As they say, all’s well that ends well.
According to Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) president Patrick Liew, the unpredictable weather had wreaked havoc on the tournament schedules for three full days but other than that, everything was pretty much on track.
First leg matches, supposed to finish from January 10 to 14, had to be carried forward another two days while the second leg doubles competition were scrapped.
Second leg singles matches were completed on Tuesday with the boys’ title going to Adas Seif of Jordan after his opponent from Sri Lanka Sharma Dissanayake retired in the second set due to injury while Malaysia’s Choo Lyn Yuen captured her second singles title after crushing Joy Chia of Singapore 6-0, 6-1 in the final.
“It has never been easy organising an international tournament like this because you need to take a number of factors into account – the weather, finances, logistics, manpower, preparation of facilities, players and officials accommodation, flights, food and the like,” Liew said.
According to ITF guidelines, he added, the organiser must also ensure a medical team was standing by to attend to injuries suffered by the players.
“Fruit juice and nutritious food had to be provided for them as well during the championship.
“At the same time, we must meet ITF basic requirements for the courts and facilities. We need to ensure the coaches or team managers, players and their parents are well taken of in terms of hotel accommodation, food and transportation to and from the competition venue.
“We don’t want them to leave with a negative impression. To boost SLTA’s chances of hosting the tournament again, all the team captains and managers will fill up a survey form to be forwarded to ATF and ITF.”
To Liew, the most important criterion is strong financial support from either the government or the corporate sector.
“If there are no sponsors, there will be no tournament and no development programme.”
He said to organise an international event, SLTA needed $20,000 on average.
“For an ITF event, we are given a grant of US$16,500 from the ITF development funds.
“As for Junior Davis Cup and Junior Fed Cup qualifying tournaments, grants may reach up to US$130,000,” he added.