STA president warns against excluding Sukma tennis medals
KOTA KINABALU: Serious efforts need to be made in order to develop sports to higher standards if Malaysia were to have any presence in the world sporting scene, and it is no exception for tennis, warned Sabah Tennis Association president Johnson Koh.
“If we are unwilling to even allow tennis to be properly included in Sukma (Malaysia Games), how can we compete in the world’s top tournaments where all the big money is won?
“We really need to look at this from a broader perspective because where else can we measure sporting excellence and success if not on the global scene,” he said.
Stressing the point that tennis was only second to golf in terms of prize money for individual sports, Johnson said Malaysia would do well to invest funds to produce more talents through proper development programmes.
Towards this end, Koh said exempting their legitimacy in the overall medals count in Sukma was akin to taking development efforts for tennis and casting them into the shadows.
“We have to move forward in developing tennis as a sport, and we certainly do not want to take backward steps,” Koh said.
He added that failure to recognise tennis in the same way as other sports in Sukma would send a negative message to players and officials.
“They practice and train daily only to learn that their contribution in Sukma would not even count in the overall medals tally.
“This is certainly not the path that we want to set for the players that we spent so much money and effort on to develop talents,” said Koh.
He stressed that the success of producing national talents like Christian Didier Chin should be taken as a cue to seriously explore Malaysia’s potential in the sport.
“We have proven our ability to produce talented players like Christian. The sidelining of tennis in Sukma should not be allowed to happen simply because it trumps our development efforts for the sport.
“We need to look at the full scope of potential that tennis can offer in terms of putting Malaysia in the global scene of international sports.
“I believe this should be the ultimate goal of developing any sport and there should be absolutely no exceptions for tennis,” Koh reiterated.
Earlier, when chairing an executive committee meeting for Tennis Malaysia, Koh revealed their intention to discuss the matter of tennis in Sukma with the Federal Youth and Sports Minister and they were hoping for a positive outcome.
“Among other matters we discussed during the meeting included disciplinary conduct, the need to have more tournaments and broadening of the juniors base.
“There is also a need to have district and state statistics on facilities and the like, while parents who frequently interfere in players’ matches will be monitored,” Koh said.
Tennis Malaysia president Mirzan Mahathir joined the discussion about halfway through the meeting after arriving from the ITF (International Tennis Federation) meeting in London earlier.
As always, the friendly camaraderie among state leaders of tennis culminated in a session of durian eating courtesy of the Pahang state association president.