S’wak Lawn Tennis Association celebrates 60th anniversary with full calendar of events

KUCHING (Dec 30): Sarawak Lawn Tennis Association (SLTA) capped a most eventful year after organising eight international and 16 local events in 2023.

The first international tournament was the ITF World Tennis Tour Women W15 (Leg 3) from Feb 28 to Mar 3 which was followed by the 38th Sarawak Premier Cup (I) ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors J300 (J1) from Mar 14-19, ITF World Tennis Junior Team Competition U14 (Girls) Final Qualifying from Mar 20-26 and ITF World Tennis Junior Team Competition U14 (Boys) Final Qualifying from Mar 27 to Apr 2.

After a five-month break, SLTA next hosted the 39th Sarawak Premier Cup (II) ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors J100 (J3) from Sept 5-10, 1st ATF Asian U16 Series Leg 5 from Oct 28-29, 16th ATF Asian U14 Series from Nov 7-11 before ending with the ITF World Tennis Tour M15 Leg 1 from Nov 13-19.

On the local scene, KDLTA Monthly Medal was the year’s curtain-raiser from Jan 28-29, followed by SSC Junior Age Group (Leg 1) in Miri from Feb 18-20 and the Kuching Closed from Feb 24-26.

Other local events included the Inter-Division and Sarawak Closed, KDLTA Monthly Medal series, KDLTA Inter-Team, SSC Junior Age Group Leg 2 and Leg 3, Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah Cup and Dato Henry Harry Jinep Cup and SSC Junior Age Group Master.

“We had a very busy year and we organised an event almost every month and we are happy to receive very positive feedback from the participants.

“There were zero complaints and they (participants, coaches, officials and parents) said the organisation of the events is good. This is the utmost satisfaction we get for organising the events,” SLTA president Dato Patrick Liew told The Borneo Post.

He said although it was very taxing and time consuming to organise the events especially three back-to-back events in November, ultimately SLTA looked at what it had intended to do which was to promote tennis and help to promote sports tourism and keep tennis alive in Sarawak.

“Here, I would like to congratulate and extend my gratitude to my hardworking committee for a job well done and also to the Sarawak government and private sponsors for their continuous support.

“We also celebrated our 60th anniversary together with Sarawak 60 years of Independence and a dinner was hosted to recognise their contribution towards SLTA over the years,” he added.

At SLTA 60th Anniversary dinner, long service awards were presented to eight office-bearers including Liew himself, vice presidents Douglas Telajan, Dr Wee Thian Yew and Simon Tiong, secretary Bernard Chin, treasurer Kho Siak Koi and committee members James Ling and Roger Eng.

More international events will be organised by SLTA next year. Five already confirmed are 40th Sarawak Premier Cup (J1) and 41st Sarawak Premier Cup (J3) and World Junior Tennis Qualifying (Boys), World Junior Tennis Qualifying (Girls) and 17th ATF Asian U14 Series.

“There are 23 local and international events lined up for the SLTA calendar while there are 44 events for the Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia calendar.

“This (23 events) is part of our preparations for Sukma XXI, and a test of our organising skills, facilities preparations and it always a national pride to have Sukma in Sarawak, a sort of public relations exercise to show other states what Sarawak is capable of apart from politics and others and that sports is our spirit of making Sarawak popular among the other states,” added Liew.