Pride of SLTA: Ariez now a pro tennis coach in the Big Apple
KUCHING: Former Sukma player Ariez Elyaas Deen Hesham has taken a major step in his tennis career by becoming a full- time coach with SPORTIME and JMTA in New York, US, in December last year.
SPORTIME, home to the John McEnroe Tennis Academy, has locations in New York City, Long Island and Westchester. It offers a complete menu of adult and junior lesson programming, including its trademarked Junior and Adult Tennis Kinetics and EXCEL programmes.
Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association president Dato Patrick Liew said yesterday he felt proud and happy for Ariez in taking up a coaching career after graduating from the University of the Cumberlands with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
“It will be a good experience for him as a coach in a foreign country and JMTA is an established and reputable tennis academy.
“The coaching experience will be good for him as a sports development career for tennis,” he added.
According to Liew, not many of the state’s former players have taken up coaching after completing higher studies overseas.
“Ariez, who is now 22 years old, is a product of the SLTA tennis development programme and he has represented Sarawak in Sukma Malacca in 2012 and Sukma Perlis in 2014 where he helped the state team to win gold medals.
“SLTA is not only developing tennis as a sport. If the players do well in the sport and secondary school education, we also help them to further their academic studies by securing tennis scholarships in overseas universities,” said Liew.
Ariez was one of the youngest players to represent the country in the Davis Cup at 16. He achieved an ITF ranking of 309 and played in the ITF Men’s Circuit for a year, acquiring singles and doubles points to gain a professional ranking before joining the University of Cumberlands.
At that university, Ariez was
SLTA is not only developing tennis as a sport. If the players do well in the sport and secondary school education, we also help them to further their academic studies by securing tennis scholarships in overseas universities. Dato Patrick Liew, SLTA president
the number one player for his team for four years and helped his university qualify for the national tennis tournament, garnering numerous NAIA MSC First-Team-All-American awards in the process.
In the Davis Cup in 2015, Ariez was the number three player and he helped Malaysia gain promotion from Group 3 to Group 2.
The SEA Games in Singapore in 2015 saw Ariez securing a bronze medal.