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SQUASH: World champ by 2016

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SRAM president Datuk Syed Mustaffa Syed Ali Raja, his deputy Huang Ying How and CIMB Foundation chief executive Raja Noorma Raja Othman with the junior players yesterday.

COMMITMENT: RM200,000 annual pledge has SRAM motivated

THE Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) intends to produce a world junior champion by 2016 after CIMB Foundation agreed to set aside RM200,000 annually in a special fund to achieve that aim.

A squad of 10 players aged 14 and 15 will be identified and groomed for the 2016 Men's and Women's World Junior Individual Championships with reigning British Junior Open boys' Under-15 champion Ng Eain Yow at the forefront of the project.

SRAM also aims to win a World Junior Team Championship by 2017.
Ong Beng Hee remains Malaysia's only world junior men's champion in 1998 although Ivan Yuen reached the 2009 final while Nicol David won women's world junior titles in 1999 and 2001.

Ivan and current women's World No 7 Low Wee Wern aside, the first decade of the 21st century saw lean pickings for national juniors but the recent rise of teenagers like Eain Yow, Syafiq Kamal, Fareez Izwan Mokhtar and S. Sivasangari provides a glimmer of hope for the future.

The lack of quality national junior players, along with funding constraints and clash of dates with the Malaysia Games, meant SRAM has failed to send players to five of the last six world meets.
"Yes, I think so," said SRAM president Datuk Syed Mustaffa Syed Ali when asked if national juniors will be sent to the 2013 edition in Wroclaw, Poland on July 16-21.

"We are preparing for 2016 so this is a step forward to expose our boys and girls to the World Junior Championships and let them get a feel of the atmosphere."

CIMB Foundation chief executive Raja Noorma Raja Othman said RM200,000 will be allocated each year to develop these players.

"It is not easy to develop world champions but we hope that this squad will go a long way to producing world champions for Malaysia," said Raja Noorma after launching the 2013 Rising Stars and National Junior Circuits in Bukit Jalil yesterday.
Syed Mustaffa said SRAM chose 2016 because it believes Eain Yow and Fareez would be capable of being among the world's best juniors by then.

This initiative will help SRAM achieve its 'Project 100' ambition to help national juniors break into the top-100 of the world rankings.

At present, 17-year-old Vanessa Raj is the only national junior ranked in the top-100 at 85th on the WSA Tour on the back of qualifying for the main draw of the CIMB Malaysian Open while Sanjay Singh Chal, 18, is the highest ranked national junior at 200th on the PSA Tour.

CIMB Foundation already funds the national junior circuits and sponsored several promising juniors to the Hong Kong Junior Open last year and this year's British Junior Open.

SRAM expects 800 players to play in the first two legs of the national junior circuits this year, which kicks off with the Rising Stars circuit for Under-9, Under-11 and Under-13 players at the National Squash Centre in Bukit Jalil from today to Sunday.

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