KUCHING: Four Sarawakians are among the 15 local juniors competing in the 20th Sarawak Chief Minister’s Cup (II) ITF junior tennis championship (Grade 3) to be held at Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) tennis centre from Oct 30 to Nov 4.
Aslina Chua is the only Malaysian playing in the main draw of the girls’ singles while Choo Lyn Yuen, Low Zhe Han and Chang Tun Sien are playing in the qualifier that starts on Oct 29.
Choo will also be joined by compatriots Ti Jia Wei, Nurin Nabilah Roslan and Alyssa Boey in the qualifier.
Looking to qualify for the boys’ singles main draw are Tan Zu Zinyang and Benjamin Lim on the alternates list are Low Kar Win and Joshua Jordan.
The two Malaysians in the boys’ main draw are Ahmed Deedat Abdul Razak (ITF No. 609) and Colin Wong Wei Ming (ITF No. 642).
Turkey’s Cem Ilkel is the top ranked player at number 94 while his counterpart Ipek Soylu is the highest ranked girl at number 69.
“Although this is only a Grade 3 competition, it is very competitive judging from the rankings of the players, with the cut off for the boys main draw at ITF No. 642 and girls main draw at ITF No. 661,” the organising committee chairman, Dato Patrick Liew said in a press conference yesterday.
Liew who is also SLTA president, said this is the second leg of the Chief Minister’s Cup ITF Junior Tennis Championship as the first leg, a Grade 1 event, was held in March this year.
“As in the past, the championship has again attracted very good response, with 93 boys and 68 girls from 29 countries have confirmed taking part,” he said on the exciting event which has made Sarawak well known globally as a preferred destination for international junior tennis events.
He is expecting some withdrawals as players might not come for the qualifying matches as they are too lowly ranked or do not have any rankings at all.
“In this aspect, we will be using the wildcards where we as the organiser can allocate at least three to Malaysians,” said Liew.
He said apart from organising international events, SLTA is also organising local competitions such as the Sarawak Closed and Inter-Division, Kuching Age Group to unearth more young talents to groom them for future championships.
“We are also encouraging our affiliates to organise more local tournaments to give our players more opportunity to compete,” he added.
He said by getting Malaysians to play in the international competitions organised by SLTA, they would get more exposure and ready to play at a higher level of tennis.- www.theborneopost.com
