LTAM promises packed schedule of tennis events next year
KUCHING: The year 2023 will be packed with several local, national and international tennis competitions for Malaysia. According to Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM) vice president Dato Patrick Liew Chin Joon, the national body has lined up six international tournaments in its 2023 calendar, including one J1, two J3, two J4 and one J5 events.
“The J1 and one J3 event which are the Sarawak Premier Cup World Junior Tour in March and September next year will be held in Sarawak and organised by the Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) Tennis Centre,” said Liew who is LTAM chairman of tournament, officiating, technical development and system application.
The other J3 event will be held in Kuala Lumpur in Sept as a back-to-back event to Sarawak’s J3, the J4 events back to back in Kuala Lumpur in July while the J5 will be held in February.
“Apart from that, we have proposed to organise six ATF 14&Under Series (subject to ATF approval) with one each in Kuching, Sabah, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor and another two in other states.
“Probably we will also organise two J500 events, one in Selangor and the other depending on which state willing to take up the hosting job,” said the SLTA president.
Liew said LTAM is also working on the national junior circuit as well as national senior circuit.
“SLTA has also finalised its 2023 calendar. We just want to keep going and pushing for more events because by doing so, it will encourage more of our young people to take up tennis and not focus too much time on surfing the social media,” he said.
Liew stressed the need to recruit more children starting from four years old onwards for the SLTA junior development programme.
“I am also in charge of the junior development programme and ITF Junior Tennis Initiative programme in Malaysia and we will get the JTI structure up in Sarawak first and later expand to other states.
“We need players because we are organising so many tournaments every year. Although we have already many players participating in the tournaments, they are growing older each year and many will stop playing tennis at a certain stage, so there is the need to ensure that we have continuity,” added Liew.
He also hoped that flight frequencies into Malaysia and Kuching in particular will be increased next year so that fares can be cheaper and in turn encourage more foreign players to come and play in Malaysia.