Jessica Keng grabs Under-15 title at National Junior Championship
KOTA KINABALU: Jessica Keng impressed by winning the Girls’ Under-15 title at the National Junior Championship at the National Squash Centre in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.
The 2017 British Junior Open semifinalist justified her top seeding by beating Kedah’s Wong Heng Wai in the title match.
Keng took the first set 11-8 and never looked back as she registered 11-4 and 11-0 for a 3-0 straight sets win over her second seeded rival.
The rest of the Sabah junior squash players did well to finish from second to fifth placing in their respective categories.
Yee Xing Yang, who also competed in the Girls’ Under-15, finished third after losing to Noor Aina Amani Apandi of the Federal Territory 1-11, 8-11 and 7-11.
Duncan Lee, who was runner-up at the British Junior Open, went down fighting in the Boys’Under15 to Muhammad Amir Amirul Azhar.
The top seed Lee led twice in the final but the second seeded Amir fought back to level the tie on each occasion (11-7, 2-11, 11-4, 7-11) to set up the winner-take-all fifth set.
Amir did enough to upset the seeding to win the deciding set 118 to clinch the title.
In the Boys ‘ Under-11, Sabah’s Tristan Andreas and Danny Gan finished third and fifth respectively.
Tristan beat Low Wa Sern 117, 11-5 and 13-11 while Gan edged Addin Iqwan Hilman 4-11, 11-7, 11-5 and 11-9.
Second seed Lai Wen Li also finished third in the Girls’ Under17 after her top seeded opponent Nur Aliah of Penang retired from the match.
All the state juniors are based at the Bukit Jalil Sports School except for Keng and Tristan.