Christian Didier returns to court
KOTA KINABALU: Christian Didier Chin is all set to return to competitive tournament following a year-long pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Sabahan top national tennis player is scheduled to play in the clay court pre-season tournament at the International ITF Cairo in Egypt starting April 12.
“After the cancellation of the El Sheikh Sharm Egypt ITF tournament in April last year and other competitions that were cancelled due to the pandemic, he has not been touring international tournaments.
“Most of the Asian ITF/ATP tournaments too have been either cancelled or postponed to a later date this year.
“He has been waiting patiently and now he is all set to compete in his first competition at the International ITF Cairo, Egypt.
“He will be involved in the four-day pre-season clay court tournament in Egypt before heading to Greece to compete before switching to the hardcourt season playing in Heraklion, Greece,” said Christian father, Christopher, in a statement on Sunday.
Christian has spent a solid one year training under his personal Iranian Coach Saed Alirizad in Kuala Lumpur, where he worked on his physique strength improvement as well as technical hitting adjustment both for forehand and backhand in baselines, Christopher said.
However, they are not putting high expectation on his return to court action, especially after after a long lay-off.
“There is no high expectation in his first few international ITF/ ATP tournaments.
“We will want him to get into the competitive environment again and on all surfaces in different countries with different weather condition,” added Chin senior.
Meanwhile, both Christopher and his son welcomed well the appointment of Hazli Zainuddin as the head coach of Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia as the national squad geared up for the SEA Games and Davis Cup in 2021.
Christopher also hoped that the new head coach would be able to plan for the country’s top men players to compete in International Tennis Federation (ITF) or Association of Tennis Professional (ATP) international tournaments week-in week-out.
He said this will ensure the national top men’s players including Christian will be able to collect points to improve on his ranking, thus be able to gain immediate entry to tournaments.
“We hope the best for Christian to pick up points to maintain his world ranking position thus go for the men’s Grand Slams sooner,” concluded Christopher.