ATE make clean sweep of UMS Staff Games tennis titles
KOTA KINABALU: The Audit, Treasury and Endowment (ATE) contingent defended their overall title in tennis by sweeping all categories contested at the 17th Staff Games held at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).
Tennis events held from September to October 4 featured four categories, namely men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
Mohd Fadley Chin defeated an experienced player, Psychology and Education Faculty Prof Dr Muhammad Suhaimi Taat, 7-4 to give ATE their first win.
Fadley’s victory helped to inspire another win from Onnin Osthen/Donna Totu, who beat Dr Joko Sulistyo/Natasa Hazelny (Black Panthers), 8-4 in the mixed doubles final.
In the women’s doubles, Jeniffer Leonard/Zulin Jiwin made it three for ATE but had to sweat before eventually winning 8-4 in the final against Black Panthers’ Roslinda Sanan/Siti Norlizah Limat.
Salleh Wahab and Al-Hami Zurairi delivered the final win with a stylish 8-1 victory over Azmi Jumat and Kasim Utudiki of Mix FKJI in the men’s doubles.
ATE tennis team manager Salleh Wahad said the clean sweep victory was made possible thanks to the passion and enthusiasm shown by the players throughout the tournament.
“Even though most of us in the team are young and inexperienced, we still managed to give our best for our contingent through the commitment, unrelenting attitude and high commitment of our players,” he said.
However, he said more important than the victory was that through the tournament, everyone was able to forge better rapport among one other in the UMS staff fraternity.
“Winning was actually not our main prospect. More importantly is that we had the opportunity to increase our cheerfulness index and ‘family’ interaction among UMS staff through sports,” he said.
Meanwhile, the organising chairman of tennis events, Davis Juadis, lauded the spirit shown by all the 47 players.
“On behalf of the organiser, I would like to thank all the participants for the spirit and sportsmanship they showed so admirably throughout the tournament,” he said.
Tennis was among the sports contested in the UMS Staff Games held from July 20 to October 5.
Other disciplines include futsal, volleyball, sepaktakraw, table tennis and others.
A total of 17 contingents took part comprising joint departments, faculties, centres, institutes and units within UMS.