M’sia’s junior not far away to catch-up with Egypt — coach

KUALA LUMPUR: National junior squash coach, Andrew Cross believes the country is on the right track to catchup with leading powerhouses especially Egypt which continued to dominate the sports lately.

The 31-year-old Englishman, who joined the national junior squash team since 2007, noted that he was happy to see the emergence of a pool of youngsters in the country and was confident more good things will come in future if the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) organised more local circuit tournaments.

“It is better if more youngsters are given the chance to showcase their true potentials in the local circuit before entering a higher level where we can draw up bigger development plans for them.

“I see things going pretty well at the moment based on the juniors’ current performance, but we should not rest on our laurels and should keep pushing forward,” he told Bernama recently.

Meanwhile, Cross is extremely delighted with the spectacular achievement scored by his charges this season and praised two top junior players - S. Sivasangari and Ng Eain Yow who continued to demonstrate a sizzling performance in several tournaments.

Taking Sivangsari as an example, Cross pointed out that the 18-year-old teenager showcased a true capability to be a world beater in the future based on the former’s current performance.

Sivasangari enjoyed an exceptional season by winning various titles including helping the national junior team win the silver medal at the World Junior Team Championship in New Zealand in July, winning two gold medals at the Kuala Lumpur SEA Games in August, bagging two Malaysian Tour Squash Circuit (SSJM) titles last month and winning the Malaysian Open, last month.

“Obviously, she showcased a good performance as she had won eight titles now and hopefully she can keep progressing and hit the top 25 world rankings in future and we see how it goes from there,” he added.

Under his guidance, Cross managed to churn out up-andcoming young players such as Mohd Syafiq Kamal, Muhd Addeen Idrakie Bakhtiar, Andrea Lee, Aifa Azman and Zoe Foo Yuk Han. – Bernama