PTBS to promote tennis aggresively

KUCHING: The Sarawak Bumiputera Tennis Association (PTBS) have announced that they will be promoting tennis aggressively to the Bumiputera community after the success of Sarawak-born national players Mohd Assri Merzuki and Muhammad Aiman Hamdan.

The association is planning to organise more tournaments to unearth new talents and is set to launch their website this Oct 21 to further boost tennis development in the state.

“PTBS have so far produced a number of renowned players including Mohd Assri Merzuki. After seeing the success of Mohd Assri, we were motivated to organise more tournaments and create a website to promote our association and development of tennis in the state. We want to promote tennis more among the Bumiputera community,” informed PTBS official Ismail Abdullah.

Current Kuching age-group champion Muhammad Aiman Hamdan is also one of the products of PTBS youth development programme.

He participated against a few of the world’s best U-14 players at the ITF Asian U-14 tournament which was held here recently.

“He is one the best young players in the state and we are glad that he has decided to compete in the tournament. Apart from Mohd Assri Merzuki who is one of the country’s finest, Muhammad Aiman is also a product of our youth programme,” said Ismail.

After the recent success of the Inter-community Tennis Tournament last month, PTBS will be organising a two-day tennis tournament from Oct 20 to 21.

“The tournament will be called the ‘YB Datuk Fadillah Yusof Cup’ and is dedicated to the current Petra Jaya Member of Parliament.

“The tournament features some of the state’s finest Bumiputera tennis players. This includes Muhammad Aiman. It is open to all those who are of Sarawak Bumiputera community background,” informed Ismail.

The tournament, which will be held at the PTBS grounds/headquarters at Petra Jaya, is divided into two categories – the U-18 and above 18-years-old categories. It will be contested in a team event format.

In another development, Ismail added that the association is in the process to get more female Bumiputera players to participate in their competitions.

“We do realise there is a lack of participation from female Bumiputeras in tennis. Therefore, we are committed to unearth more female tennis players and we hope to do so in this tournament.

“All female players will be playing in the mixed-doubles in their respective age categories in the tournament,” he said.

Apart from the tournament itself, PTBS will hold a dinner cum prize-giving ceremony on the evening of the last day of the tournament (Oct 21).

“It will be called ‘Malam Mesra Bersama Warga PTBS’. Some of the association’s prominent members including Datuk Effendi Tahir and other community leaders are expected to attend the ceremony.

“The ceremony will also see the launch of the new PTBS website. PTBS would like to thank all of the sponsors of the event especially DiGi Telecommunications,” added Ismail.- www.theborneopost.com