My World of Squash

Happy New Year

2012-01-27T14:03:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year to all the readers be it the Gregorian calendar or the Chinese Lunar Calendar.

I have been with the National Team set up for close to 3 years already and how time flies including how infrequent I update this blog. Anyway, new year and new resolutions for everyone!

Things have happened in squash and latest in the arrival of our new coach, Peter Genever.

He coached Azlan and Wan in England before taking the position here. He has settled in well in role as Head Coach and is driving home the message of quality of training in the players. The players are having it tough daily and they will have to cope.

To Peter or more commonly referred to as PG, "Welcome to Malaysia".

Concepts On Coaching Juniors (Part 2)

2011-04-07T14:51:00.000+08:00

Coaching Juniors

With then general concepts in mind, coaching junior now is quite simple as to follow the phases of development for a squash player.

The phases are:

Introduction Ages 6 to 12
Fundamentals Ages 8 to 14
Training to Train (TT) Ages 10 to 18
Training to Compete (TC) Ages 16 to 24

In Malaysia and Asia, we tend to do very well in the first 2 phases of coaching juniors as most coaches are very good at what they do. They tend to skip the Training to Train phase and move on to the Training to Compete phase. The parents and coaches focus on the results and winning tournaments more rather than achieving the objectives and performances of the phases. The Training to Train phase is so important in the development of a squash player and the work done here is repetitious and tedious. As such, the tendency to skip the phase is very high when a precocious talent has been found to bring some success and glory to the coaches program. Thus, the sacrificial of the Training to Train stage is done to accommodate that. And as the player progresses, the ability to perform becomes harder and harder due to the fact that the important training elements have been skipped. This in turn frustrates the player and will slowly turn their interest and focus back to studies or other things in life.

The Training to Train phase focuses on the basic blocks of squash, meaning if we were to make a movie, the plot starts here. The earlier 2 phases are like introducing the characters involved in the movie. As such, the coach needs to have an idea or picture of what the end product would be like before he starts this phase. That too will depend on the natural physical abilities of the kid. The work for the coach in this phase is likening to shaping and cutting a rough diamond to attain its new shape as to enable it to shine when polished.

As it is very clear that most players in Malaysia and Asia go through as squash juniors but only a handful of them move on to the senior stage due to the fact that most of them will focus on their education at the ages of 17-19, and this period usually is the Training to Compete phase. This usually means totally leaving squash instead of trying to balance both. The other side to the focus on studies is that the funding is only available to those who are willing to focus full time on their squash because they need the result to justify the amount of money spent. Also the skipping of the Training to Train phase contributes to players going back to studies.

Because the Training to Compete phase is focusing on the tactical aspects of the game and learning, the need for tournaments within the country is so important. This would enable especially those in the 17 to 21 years of age who wish to balance their squash and studies the opportunity to still improve their squash. Also the financial impact on each player is so much less and it can also teach them how to make and stick to a training schedule, budget and all sorts of life decision making skills. The need to progress at their own pace is often seen as not important compared to a person who decides to do full time training at the same age. If both sets of players are allowed to continue developing their game at their respective paces, the difference in standard can be closed within a span of 2 to 3 years after the completion of thee player’s studies.

This is due to the fact that if the phase is planned properly, the focus of training should be on preparing the body’s physical components more to cope with the rigours of high level squash and combined with regular tournaments. Training frequency off court here is higher than on court. A 3 times a week on court session for about an hour is sufficient to enable the player to continually progress but not as fast as those training full time. Hence, the responsibility for progress will very much depend on the player. The coach helps facilitate the progress.

Closing

The understanding and acceptance of the above concepts by coaches will help Malaysia and Asia progress and take a step closer to realizing the dream of becoming a squash powerhouse. It will also show that the coaches are open minded, willing to move with the times and are flexible to new ideas. The need to incorporate concepts into our understanding of planning and writing of training programs will help us better in understanding the steps in producing world class squash players.

CONCEPTS ON COACHING JUNIORS (Part 1)

2010-12-16T15:54:00.000+08:00

I will be posting items on coaching and what principles/concepts that I adhere to when I do a program. This article that you see below was my assignment for my Level 3 in 2005 and has served me well.

CONCEPTS ON COACHING JUNIORS
Foreword
Coaching junior squash players have always been a big challenge, especially here in Asia where in most cases funding is from the government. Because of this reason, it is often that a coach has to sacrifice the gradual progress of a player just to get the results needed to support why the funding should continue for his or her squash programs. For the professional coaches who earn from every session they conduct, pressure from the parents contributes to his or her reason to push for the results to be obtained to enable to continue having a steady income. Also the education system here has made parents prefer the paper chase instead of a holistic approach in their children’s upbringing. With these points in mind, the concepts of coaching juniors can be and are different from other regions of the world. My concepts on coaching junior are a combination of information and things that I have learned over the last 10 years coaching and having discussions with many coaches. These concepts may not be new and you may have heard about it, but the way I interpret it may differ from others and it is specifically for Malaysia and maybe Asia. My concepts are divided into development and high performance junior players as both need to be handled differently. I will start by giving an overview of the general concepts that I use to plan and coach players in my program as to enable you to get a clearer picture of how I view things. Then only will you understand how we handle coaching juniors and its concepts. The journey to produce high performance squash players begins with the understanding of these concepts.

General Coaching Concepts
I have used the Balyi and Hamilton model for my program to develop a squash player from the day I learned it from my coaching coach. I owe him a lot for opening my eyes to what coaching is. To be coached and trained are two very different things. Unfortunately for me, I was only trained from the beginning and not coached. My progress was so fast in the initial stages but could not get anywhere after a few years. Only when I was coached did I realized what was wrong and opened my eyes to a new world, the world behind the making of a squash player.

The model consists of 5 phases of an athlete’s development from the day they start to the day they retire from their sport. They are:

Fundamentals
Training to train (TT)
Training to compete (TC)
Training to win (TW)
Retirement

In this concept, we have to take into consideration the human growth and development stages in both the physical and mental aspects. As such, I split the Fundamental and Training to Train phase as development players. Those in Training to Compete and Training to Win would be high performance players.

I have added another phase to that model, Introduction, which is to allow the kids to come and try the sport as I believe it is for them to like the sport and not forced upon them. Introduction also serves as a filtering phase before they or even the coaches embark on the high performance road of development. My model is as follows:

Introduction
Fundamentals
Training to train (TT)
Training to compete (TC)
Training to win (TW)
Retirement

I believe that the objectives for each phase needs to be set for a program to be successful and to fulfill its role. That makes the program different and flexible to be used in many different situations and conditions. Only then can we start consistently producing players to compete at the highest level and not rely on luck of discovering those special talents.

Stages of Development
Introduction
In this phase, I’d like to just introduce squash to the kids that want to play. Teaching them the basic rules and the serve, forehand drives and backhand drives are enough. What is important is for them to play some sort of squash game, be it a modified version of squash for the younger kids to the full court version. I have seen that kids who join a program usually are just testing out the game and are not really interested in being competitive players. They want to just play squash to maybe fill up their free time or meet new friends. This also serves a purpose of learning to interact with other kids and socializing.

The reason for this is because I want to promote the game and expand the playing numbers, and from there look to pick out if there are any kids who really decide to play a little more competitive squash such as the local tournaments or the junior leagues, or even if they come on their own and play with other kids when they are free. Kids here range from ages 6 to 12 years. We need to remember that there are slow developers that we don’t want to miss out on.

From here we move on to the next phase.

FUNdaMENTALS
The way I put the heading says it all, fun and mental. Here, I prefer to put ideas and motivate the kids to think big and think out of the box. “Nothing is impossible” is the motto here, within context that is. Because kids nowadays are more at home than out playing, the focus here is also on multilateral development. It focuses on coordination and basic movements needed for all sports. The duration for them to learn a new skill that looks easy to us can be long due to the fact that they will be using muscles and feeling their body movements for the first time other than the normal walk, run or jump. Continual building of movement activities which develops hand and eye, leg and hand, leg and eye and leg, hand and eye coordination is an important step and need to be maintained throughout the career of a squash player. Movements which include forward, backward, lateral and combinations of these movements are vital to the development of a squash player. Basic stability exercises are also incorporated into the sessions at improving the general strength.

Squash is still very basic, developing the swing to be efficient coupled with improving the timing when striking the ball. Movements to the ball and the timing are also being developed. Simple condition games or modified games are used to help the mind to focus on the objectives of each shot and it’s target areas. The kids here also take part in tournaments not for winning but just for the experience of being there, watching better players play and getting a feel of what it is to be on court with referees and crowds. In short, experience is the key here as then we have visual cues for us to use if we need to relate a certain situation to them. Kids her still take part in other sports to help enhance the motor skills that have been learned. It also enriches the mind of the uses of the movement and coordination skills that maybe useful in squash later.

Here, communicating with the players would require visual cues or showing the action required for them to learn new skills. It is very difficult to get the correct wordings for the kids to understand what you require of them. Showing them helps but we also need to figure out what visual cues each kid can relate to. Not all of them see things the same way, so that is the difficult part. Keeping notes on the cues that has been used is a great help for future references as I have found that if a kid can relate to a certain cue, there will be big improvements. Copying from a model that is influential also helps, like good squash players.

The age group here is anything from 8 to 14 years old depending on their progress to grasp the teachings of the coaches. Plus, again we have to consider the late developers.

Training to Train (TT)
Once I see that the kids in the fundamental phase have learned the required multilateral skills, squash skill and complemented with the focus, drive and hunger to play better squash, only then will I progress them to this phase. I have learned that it is of no use to move them to this phase unless they are ready mentally or they themselves want it. It usually is they want to improve but again the need to gradually ease them into a regime is important. When they reach this phase, I will start to prepare them for some serious training in their later years, as the heading says.

The training to train phase focuses on training the physical and mental aspects of the player as well as now getting the squash technical skills consistent and dependable for each player. Basic tactic and patterns are introduced to help the perceptual motor skill develop and react faster. The physical focus will be focused on injury prevention and assisting the growth of the player. Improving of general strength in the core section and flexibility is also emphasized. The mental aspects will introduce new but important skills needed for squash like focusing, motivating and relaxation. This is due to the fact that they will now start a more regimented type of training and so those mental skills will get them through the tough times to come.

Also here, they start to take part in tournaments which are planned for them to do well. I set about 2 to 3 tournaments for them to peak for depending on their age and ability. The emphasis on peaking is not the result but the performances that they produce in that tournament. As long as the performances are what were expected of them, or if the players say it’s their best matches, it would mean it is a success. They would also take part in other tournaments during the year but they are more of taking part and for evaluation or to see how effective the program is till that point. Taking part in these non-peaking tournaments, it is essential to make sure that the player knows the objectives that they are looking to achieve and not the results or best performances.

Kids here range from 10 to about 17 depending again on the growth and ability to grasp the objectives that are needed to be achieved.

Training to Compete (TC)
It is here that I start emphasizing on high performance for squash. The mental aspect here is the key area of focus together with the tactical aspect of squash. As the phase states, training to compete, so it means training to compete with the best and learning how compete tactically and learning the ropes of being a high performance squash player. Here the players are aged between 16 to 24 depending on sex, with the girls being younger than the boys due to the nature of maturity and less competition in the women’s event. The physical growth of both sexes matures at about 19 to 21 years of age but the brain still continues to grow till about the age of 24. That means the learning process and decision making of a player is still unstable in this phase and they would need to still go through a trial and error process to enable the brains database to continually fill up with information. Here experiential type of activities helps the information gathering process of the brain. Experiential is a combination of the coaches experience put into an experimental situation for a player to find the best solution in certain situations that helps accelerate the decision making process rather than the traditional method of trial and error.

Players here are usually playing the highest junior level of squash and trying to make the transition into the senior category or on the start of their professional career. They will also learn new experience of how to plan their traveling, making a budget and sticking to it, planning which tournaments to play in and how to progress in the rankings with the help of the coach. In short, it means learning the life skills of an adult in a guided environment. Tournaments here are in successions of 3 or 4 in the span of 6 to 8 weeks, where they will be away practicing and sparring with other professionals and taking part in the tournaments before returning to home for a discussion with the coach and resuming training for the next round of tournaments.

There will be players who will no longer be juniors when they enter this phase, but that only means that they are just late developers or having to juggle and balance studies with squash all this time. As such, they should not be forsaken but given some attention to enable them to develop as a squash player.

Training to Win (TW)
When a player reaches this stage, they have already completed all the necessary training and are ready for performing at the highest level. This is when the players and the people who fund the programs can seriously look into getting the results to justify the spending of money to support the programs. Players here range from 22 years of age till about 35 at this moment in time. But with the amount of scientific knowledge that is being discovered, the age of 35 maybe extended further.

The training here is divided into 3 main areas, Pre-season, In-season and Transition. In Pre-season, the player will be doing more off court work like cardiovascular training, strength training and some goal setting to prepare for the In-season. The In-season training would consist of tactical training and perfection of shots coupled with speed agility training for the physical component. The mental aspect would focus on the concentration and relaxation of the player.

Tournaments here are similar to the Training to Compete phase which is in clusters of 2 to 4 in a row. This means that players would be training to peak and play to win the events they enter all the time or surpass their best performances all the time. Then they would return to their base and train again before going off for another round of tournaments. Players here play about 18 tournaments a year in the In-season. These includes all the PSA/WISPA tournaments, WSF sanctioned tournaments and national level as well.

The Transition is very important in this phase, as it allows a player to rest and recharge their batteries. The rest can help alleviate the stress and pressures that they have to face as professionals like getting the results to justify funding and making an income. It is also the time to meet up with family and friends after the grind of traveling during the In-season. Even though it is rest, the rest will be active or otherwise all training effects during the past season will be lost due to reversibility.

Retirement
This is the final phase that a squash player has to go through in their squash life. This area is often neglected by a lot of coaches and officials in Malaysia as they always want to associate themselves with current and successful players. But when a player has committed their life to squash, it is only fair that the coaches and authorities help assist a player in this aspect. Preparation for this phase can be done early as in balancing the players squash and studies in both the Training to Train and Training to Compete phases. That will give them a base of education for them to return to complete their studies when they retire from the sport. This balance is what is not being encouraged at the moment by many countries and by the paper chase mentality of the Asian countries.

The other way is to help stream these retiring players back into the sport as coaches, administrators, trainers and officials of the sport. There are many areas of employment nowadays in the sports industry and these players can be eventually absorbed into these positions provided they can attain the necessary qualifications.

Helping our squash players to be just as successful after squash is just as important as when they are in squash because it can raise the profile of the game by generating the image of successful people associating with the sport. In turn with a higher profile, greater funding can be obtained in future.

National Championships

2010-07-16T09:45:00.000+08:00

After a lapse of 13 years, (I say 12 but is there anyone sure about it?) the Championships are back in the squash scene. The last was held in 1997 according to various sources but I think it was 1998 but I could be wrong. Anyways, you can follow the coverage of it on Squashsite which has extensive details. It's about time the Championships made a return as Malaysia is the only country that is a leading squash nation without a National Championships. This is also serving as a warm-up for the players in preparation for the Malaysian Open which is starting on the 19th of July. I will be having live coverage of the Malaysian Open again in collaboration with Squashstars. Stay tuned folks!

Get Your Fact in Order.

2010-05-29T15:39:00.007+08:00

I came across this article while browsing the NST Sports section and it seem that the honourable Datuk Aini who is quite respected by the squash fraternity needs to get better "advisors" (information). Some of the statement show how naive some of his "advisors" are. My points are in red. There are more than meet the eye in this matter but I will refrain from going deeper but maybe in time.

SRAM not churning stars

2010/05/28
By Devinder Singh

SELANGOR Squash Racquets Association chairman Datuk Aini Taib has lamented the lack of progress by the state's juniors under the guidance of national coaches.

Selangor has long been a source of players for the Squash Rackets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) with Ong Beng Hee and Ivan Yuen, to name two players, among those who have gone on to bigger things.

But it is those players who have stagnated after being handed to SRAM which has raised Aini's ire.

"There is a huge gap between the back-up players we have now and top players like Nicol David and Beng Hee. We at the state level have produced talented players after teaching them the basics but there is a limit to what we can do.

"That is where we hand them over to the national body to develop them further. It is their duty to help them excel and provide exposure opportunities. I find it perplexing as most of the players have asked to come over but I do agree with you that it is SRAM's duty to help them excel. But at times, it may take a little longer than what we Malaysians are used to. Please again check statistics of the top players in the world and what age do they generally become top performers.

"If anything, as to why Malaysia have a lack of back-up squash players, that is something you have to ask the national body," said Aini in response to a question after launching the Milo All-Stars Junior Squash Championships at the Astaka Courts in Petaling Jaya yesterday.

Several Selangor juniors, among them Tan Yan Xin and Yong Sue Ann, are struggling to show progress and fulfil their early promise despite being under the care of national coaches for the last two years. Yes, they are under the national training centre but does he know that there are other factors that determine progress? Some of it are dependent of genetic build, human growth and development, some of it priorities of the athlete and some of it their goals (parents as well). Some athletes (upon parents decision) can only spend about 10 hours a week on training but some can do 20 hours or more. Volume does play a part. Even then, one the the 2 girls have been here only for 11 months and not 2 years. Progress is not linear and there are more than meets the eye and so unless you know exactly what is happening, it may paint a different picture.

Two others -- Zul Azri Abd Aziz and Darren Subramaniam -- have left the national programme to train on their own with the latter now based in Singapore, where he is also pursuing his studies. Again, Datuk's advisors has got the facts wrong as Zul Azri is still training at the national training centre and has not left the program yet. As for Darren, even your Association didn't know he left for Singapore until he was there. We have extended help and there has yet to be any communication on that from his side. He has also refused to participate in any of the national tournaments while another national junior player in Singapore has been able to communicate, take a training program from us and also participate in national level tournaments.

If left unchecked, former SRAM vice president Aini warned Malaysia would soon be bereft of squash talent.

"We organise a junior competition to give exposure to our players at least cost possible. To send the players to the Scottish Junior Open for example is expensive and we can only send a handful," said Aini.

"But sad to say, more than half of the 400 players registered for this tournament are foreigners. I don't understand why states are not taking the opportunity to send as many of their juniors as possible and give their players a chance to compete." I'm surprised that Datuk Aini was not informed that the Milo All Star clashes with the MSSM? Don't blame the states for not sending. Know what is happening. I know that Datuk takes pride in the Milo All Star but can Datuk come and see the condition of the centre? Firstly, changing rooms are poor, courts are not in the best playing conditions (international events), scheduling that can be better and so on. Of course feedback has been given many times over but what has been done?

Top juniors from Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and France will compete in the Milo All-Stars on June 7-12 along with several national juniors.

The girls Under-19 competition is a recognised Wispa Tour rising star event and offers ranking points. India's Ravi Dixit and Penang's Low Wee Nee are the top seeds in the boys' and girls' Under-19 events respectively.

Asian Championships

2010-05-02T11:43:00.006+08:00

Finals

Nicol vs Rebecca Chiu (HK)

Azlan vs Amir Atlas Khan.

Semifinals

Azlan beat Saurav Ghosal (Ind) 11/5, 11/6, 115

Nicol beat Dipika Palikal (Ind) 11/5, 11/5, 11/2

Our players won the battle against India in the semifinals convincingly to book their places in the finals. Azlan never allowed Saurav into the match with tight length and exquisite drops. Saurav was also frustrated as he was denied lets over and over again as a result of Azlan's drops.

Nicol never allowed Dipika to settle into her stroke making game as Nicol was relentlessly attacking the back corners followed by a quick shot to the front which was then easily put away from Dipika's pick ups. As much as Dipika tired, she eventually gave up in a match that lasted about 20 minutes.

Quarterfinals

Azlan beat Abdullah Al Mezayan (Kuw) 13/11, 11/7, 12/10

Ong Beng Hee lost to Yasir Butt (Pak) 10/12, 11/8, 11/8, 11/8

Wan lost to Amir Atlas Khan (Pak) 12/10, 11/8, 11/5

Nicol beat Song Sun Mi (Kor) 11/4, 11/7, 11/7

Delia lost to Joey Chan (HK) 11/4, 11/4, 11/6

It was not the best of days for the Malaysian team today. Beng Hee lost to an inspired Yasir Butt who at will was hitting nicks. Seems that Beng Hee has this effect on Pakistanis that they will play the best match of their lives when they are up against him. Delia on the other hand was totally out of sorts on a slower court compared to yesterday's match.

Azlan although won in 3, it was close all the way. Azlan himself admitted that his unforced errors kept Abdullah in the match all the way. Nicol was in cruise control all the way.

Today, Nicol and Azlan will be up against the home favourites, Dipika Palikal and Saurav Ghosal. Updates on Facebook at 4pm Indian time (about 6pm Malaysian)

Round 3

Men

Azlan beat Anson Kwong (HK) 11/2, 11/4, 11/2

Beng Hee beat Ritwik Bhattacharya (Ind) 11/7, 11/8, 11/6

Nafiizwan beat Siddarth Suchde (Ind) 11/13, 11/13, 13/11, 11/8, 11/8

Ivan lost to Farhan Mehboob (Pak) 9/11, 11/6, 11/8, 11/8

Wan had a massive match this morning lasting almost 2 hours and starting to get cramps. He was unlucky to lose the first 2 games and fought back from 10-7 down to win the 3rd and eventually the match. Ivan did well and had a good match with Farhan while Beng Hee and Azlan won comfortably. Next up is the quarters and updates on Facebook

Round 2

Men

Azlan beat Ammar Al Temimi (Kuw) 11/2, 11/6, 11/6

Ivan beat Sandeep Jangra (Ind) 16/14, 11/6, 12/14, 11/4

Nafiizwan beat Takanori Shimizu (Jpn) 11/6, 11/8, 11/4

Beng Hee beat Timothy Soh (Sin) 11/3, 11/2, 11/8

Women

Nicol beat Elise Ng (HK) 11/6, 11/6, 11/5

Delia beat Chinatsu Matsui (Jpn) 11/3, 7/11, 11/5, 10/12, 11/5

Sharon lost to Song Sun Mi (Kor) 11/9, 5/11, 10/12, 12/10, 11/9

Wee Wern lost to Dipika Palikal (Ind) 10/12, 12/10, 11/7, 8/11, 11/8

The men played their last 32 matches and all of them won comfortably except Ivan who struggled a little on the courts which are separate from the main building. Those courts are absolutely hot and bouncy and that made him struggle a little. The rest of the men were quite comfortable.

The women's matches were the last 16 matches and Wee Wern and Sharon lost in 5 games. They were both a little unlucky but had chances to close it but couldn't capitalize. Delia struggled on the same courts as Ivan but was in totally in control in the 5th.

There was a massive upset in the women's event when Misaki Kobayashi of Japan beat the 3/4 seed, Annie Au of HK 3-1 to set up a date with Dipika for a place in the finals. Annie looked out of sorts and on the hot and bouncy courts in the other building, Misaki took full advantage to pull the biggest upset of her career.

Today, the men will play 2 matches; last 16 in the morning and quarters in the evening while the women will only play their quarterfinal matches in the evening. Updates on my Facebook.

Interesting but true......

2010-05-01T11:54:00.000+08:00

Comment: Using gag order to keep a lid on truth

2010/04/30

Devinder Singh
devinder@nst.com.my

GAG orders are there for a reason, whether valid or not, it depends on an individual's point of view.

But what gag orders usually represent is fear. Fear of deep and dark secrets spilling out into the open, as some of our sports associations can attest to.

Journalists do not care much for gag orders although there are instances where we adhere to them so as to protect those who face persecution for daring to speak the truth.

Football, squash and athletics are some of the associations fond of restricting freedom of speech although where the Malaysian Amateur Athletic Union (MAAU) is concerned, this order is mostly flouted.

The FA of Malaysia punishes any player, coach or official falling out of line when matters of policy are called into question.

With the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM), however, silence is strictly enforced with nobody other than the president authorised to speak to the media in an official capacity.

It does not matter whether it is policy related or something even as benign as selection of players for overseas assignments, a right which anywhere else would lie with the coaches.

This matter can sometimes be a source of irritation in relations between media and associations.

While the Federal Constitution clearly enshrines the freedom of speech as a basic right, sports associations blatantly gag their own people as one squash coach found out to his detriment recently.

No sooner had a local daily quoted him on the national players' chances of winning titles at an upcoming tournament, a letter was sent to him reminding him of SRAM's gag on coaches speaking publicly.

Apparently, it did not matter that the subject of coaching and players is clearly within his remit, but all the same the message is "Keep your mouth shut."

It makes me wonder why our sports leaders are so iron-fisted in their approach that they can brook no criticism whether from within or externally.

Accountability is a rare commodity in sports, as those following the travails of MAAU will agree.

To those keen on keeping a lid on the truth, all I would like to say is you can't silence them all.

Indian Odessy- Asian Championships

2010-04-29T21:06:00.004+08:00

I am in Chennai, India for the Asian Championships and will bring you guys as much updates as I can daily. The team is looking to defend all the 4 titles they won the last time in Kuwait in 2008. Wish them best of luck.

Day One

Today the Individual Events starts and the men's is a 64 draw and the women's is a 32 draw. Azlan and Nicol will be defending their titles this time around and are top seeds.

Round 1 Results

Men

Azlan beat Ali Shuhaib (IRQ) 11/4, 11/0, 11/5

Ivan Yuen beat Vivian Rhamanan (SIN) 11/9, 11/5, 11/9

Mohd. Nafiizwan beat Vrishab Kotian (IND) 11/7, 11/1, 11/4

Beng Hee beat Shen Jiaqi (CHN) 11/6, 11/3, 11/8

Women

Nicol beat Gu Jinyue (CHN) 11/2, 11/3, 11/6

Sharon beat Kim Ar Huyn (KOR) 11/4, 11/4, 11/6

Wee Wern beat Gayara Jayasuriya (SRI) 11/3, 11/3, 11/1

Delia beat Damindi Udangawa (SRI) 11/0, 11/3, 11/1

2nd round matches are commencing soon which will be last 32 for men and last 16 for women. Updates after that or live updates on my Facebook.

KL Open 2010

2010-03-20T00:36:00.006+08:00

What a semifinals we had!! Ramy showed his class and Darwish was comfortable in their win over Beng Hee and Azlan respectively. Nicol will go up against Omneya to decide who wins the title. Final are as follows:

Men

Ramy Ashour beat Karim Darwish 11/8, 11/8, 11/9

Women

Nicol David vs Omneya Abdel Kawy 11/4, 11/2, 13/11

I will be having live scoring again with the help of Squashstars. You can catch it live on Astro Arena on channel 801. Photos can be viewed here.

CIMB KL Open 2010: Finals

KL Open 2010

2010-03-18T23:43:00.011+08:00

The semifinal line up are as follows:

Men

Karim Darwish beat Azlan Iskandar 11/6, 11/6, 11/7

Ramy Ashour beat Ong Beng Hee 11/5, 8/11, 11/6, 11/7

Women

Omneya Abdel Kawy beat Jenny Duncalf 11/3, 11/8, 11/9

Nicol David beat Alison Waters 11/3, 11/7, 11/5

For photos of the event, please go here.

There will be live scoring and blogging as well. So stay tuned folks!!

CIMB KL OPEN 2010: Semi Finals (WOMEN)

KL Open 2010

2010-03-17T21:10:00.023+08:00

I'm live and running in Berjaya Times Square and awaiting the 1st match. Scores are now live courtesy of Squashstars.

Below are the full results:

Men

Ramy Ashour beat Amir Atlas Khan 12/14, 11/3, 11/6, 11/6

Ong Beng Hee beat El Shorbagy 7/11, 8/11, 16/14, 11/4, 11/8

Azlan Iskandar beat Stewart Boswell 11/1, 11/8, 11/5

Karim Darwish beat Cameron Pilley 11/7, 11/7, 11/9

Women

Nicol David beat Kasey Brown 12/10, 14/12, 11/1

Alison Waters beat Samantha Teran 11/5, 11/2, 8/11, 11/13, 12/10

Omneya Abdel Kawy beat Madeline Perry 12/10, 7/11, 11/5, 11/7

Jenny Duncalf beat Laura Massaro 11/7, 4/11, 10/12, 10/11 retired due to injury

It was an amazing day having 8 matches on the glass court one after another. And every match had some sort of drama or thrilling moments. Darwish and Pilley were on 1st and it was fast paced. Darwish showed why he was a former World Champion and world no. 1 when he clinically finished every good chance he had.

Jenny and Laura played 2nd with Laura having match ball but collided with Jenny and in the process twisted her ankle to concede the match. What wretched luck and according to the doctor that had the first look, she may be out for 4 weeks.

Azlan then took on Boswell and Azlan was on fire. He was very quick out of the blocks and attacked everything that was short and Boswell had practically no answer except the middle part of the 2nd game where he slowed the pace down a little and sucked Azlan into it. But Azlan stepped up and closed it.

Kawy vs Perry was either winners or errors from both players in the first 2 games. Kawy then showed what great hands she has to just keep hitting winner after winner. Perry tried her best but always looked 2nd best here.

Beng Hee and Shorbagy was the longest match of the day and I was nail biting especially when Shorbagy took the 1st easily due to Beng Hee being very loose and reckless. But he tighten up and led the 2nd 8-4 but then lost 7 points in a row to lose it. The 3rd was the same as teh 2nd where Beng Hee built a lead and almost lost it. He somehow managed to squeezed it at the end. After that he was always in front and duly created an upset he deserved.

Waters was 2-0 up against Teran in like 10-12 minutes and we were expecting a very quick one. Teran was full of nerves and it showed. After managing to composed herself, she then managed to put Waters under pressure and was unlucky to lose 12/10 in the 5th.

Ramy and Amir was something of a repeat of their junior days. Amir got off to a great start while Ramy looked sluggish and duly lost that 14/12. He then showed why he's the best player in the world at the moment by stepping up a gear and was 9-0 up before Amir got his 1st point. Ramy the repeated it in the next 2 to wrap it up in about 30 mins. Ramy has incredible speed, great accuracy on the drops and can create shots out of nothing.

Everyone thought Nicol would walk all over Kasey but it wasn't. Kasey gave a performance that suggest that she may trouble our queen in the near future if she is able to continue the progress. Kasey just was out of air and a little dejected for not being able to close out the first 2 games.

CIMB KL OPEN 2010: Quarter Finals

KL Open 2010

2010-03-16T21:02:00.006+08:00

We had some fantastic matches today and Ivan and Delia almost had wins of their lives. Azlan made an upset by beating Adrian Grant 3-0 while Samantha Teran beat former world no.1 Vanessa Atkinson 3-1 to advance to the quarterfinals. Beng Hee as expected had a difficult time against former top 20 player, Mohammad Abbas. Below are the full results.

Men

Ramy Ashour beat Mohd. Nafiizwan 11/7, 11/9, 11/7 35 min

Amir Atlas Khan vs Omar Abdel Aziz 9/11, 11/9, 12/10, 11/9 52 min

Mohamed El Shorbagy beat Ivan Yuen 11/5, 8/11, 13/11, 13/11 55 min

Ong Beng Hee beat Mohammad Abbas 11/8, 11/9, 3/11, 11/8 56 min

Stuart Boswell beat Muhd. Asyraf Azan 11/4, 11/8, 11/5 29 min

Mohd. Azlan Iskandar beat Adrian Grant 11/4, 11/4, 11/9 40 min

Cameron Pilley beat Jonathan Kemp 11/7, 11/5, 11/7 31 min

Karim Darwish beat Ali Anwar Reda 11/6, 11/9, 11/0 36 min

Women

Nicol David beat Jaclyn Hawkes 11/7, 11/8, 11/2 37 min

Kasey Brown beat Sarah Kippax 11/6, 11/4, 11/5 33 min

Alison Waters beat Delia Arnold 7/11, 14/16, 11/3, 11/9, 11/9 75 min

Samantha Teran beat Vanessa Atkinson 13/11, 8/11, 11/9, 11/2 50 min

Madeline Perry beat Donna Urquhart 11/7, 6/11, 5/11, 11/6, 11/7 60 min

Omneya Abdel Kawy beat Rebecca Chiu 9/11, 11/4, 11/4, 11/3 30 min

Laura Massaro beat Raneem El Weleily 11/9, 11/1, 0/11, 12/14, 12/10 44 min

Jenny Duncalf beat Engy Kheirallah 11/4, 11/6, 11/7 27 min

KL Open 2010

2010-03-16T15:14:00.009+08:00

Yesterday 10 Malaysians, 6 men and 4 women took part in the qualifying and only 2 men came through. They are Mohd. Nafiizwan and Ivan Yuen but in contrasting styles. Nafiizwan had an easy 21 minute match winning 3-0 while Ivan squandered a 2-0 lead to eventually win 3-2 in 70 minutes. Kamran Khan and Low Wee Wern came close losing in 5 games with Kamran having 2 matchballs in the 5th and Wee Wern having to lead 7-6 in the 5th. Both could not close out their matches.

Todays 2nd round qualifying line-up will be:

Women:

Sarah Kippax beat Annie Au 11/9, 11/9, 12/10 40 min

Rebecca Chiu beat Joey Chan 11/8, 5/11, 8/11, 11/4, 11/6 42 min

Donna Urquhart beat Tania Bailey 11/9, 13/11, 9/11, 7/11, 12/10 49 min

Raneem El Weleily beat Aisling Blake 11/6, 12/10, 11/4 27 min

Men:

Omar Abdel Aziz vs Chris Simpson 12/14, 11/1, 7/11, 11/5, 12/10 83 min

Mohammed Abbas beat Mark Krajcsak 11/4, 11/6, 11/2 42 min

Ivan Yuen beat Stephen Coppinger 7/11, 11/8, 11/2, 11/6 46 min

Mohd. Nafiizwan vs Amr Swelim 12/10, 12/10, 10/12, 11/7 74 min

I will try to do some live updates if possible.

KL Open 2010

2010-03-15T19:53:00.003+08:00

Day One 15/3/10

Latest Update

Qualifying 1st Round

Women:

Annie Au beat Siti Munirah 11/9, 11/9, 11/6 27 min

Sarah Kippax beat Low Wee Wern 11/8, 5/11, 11/8, 6/11, 11/7 60 min

Rebecca Chiu beat Joshna Chinappa 11/9, 9/11, 11/9, 11/3 30 min

Joey Chan beat Lauren Briggs 12/10, 11/3, 11/6 26 min

Donna Urquhart beat Zulhijjah Azan 11/7, 11/5, 11/5 20 min

Tania Bailey beat Song Sun-Mi 11/5, 11/6, 11/7 32 min

Aisling Blake beat Sharon Wee 11/5, 11/8, 11/7 26 min

Raneem El Weleily beat Elise Ng 11/4, 11/5, 11/5 20 min

Men:

Amr Swelim beat Siddarth Suchde 11/8, 7/11, 9/11, 11/5, 11/5 76 min

Mohd. Nafiizwan beat Graeme Wilson 11/3, 11/6, 11/1 21 min

Stephen Coppinger beat Kamran Khan 11/4, 11/7, 8/11, 11/13, 13/11 77 min

Ivan Yuen beat Jorge Ferreira 13/11, 11/7, 8/11, 7/11, 11/3 70 min

Mohammad Abbas beat Leroy Leong 11/4, 11/1, 11/4 17 min

Mark Krajcsak beat Harinder Pal Sandhu 5/11, 11/7, 11/5, 11/6 52 min

Chris Simpson beat Elvinn Keo 11/8, 3/6, retired due to knee injury

Omar Abdel Aziz beat Choong Kam Hing 11/13, 11/1, 11/6, 11/8 32 min

Nicol David is Online!!

2010-03-15T09:20:00.002+08:00

Last night I was at the launch of Nicol's brand spanking new website, www.nicoldavid.com. Only a few very close friends were invited together with her long time sponsors/partners. I was one of the fortunate few to be invited. Photos to come later but in the mean time, go check the site out!!

Cheers people!!

I'm Back and Kicking!!

2010-03-03T14:03:00.002+08:00

I've been away from blogging for a bit due to my busy schedule but now I'm back. Been using that time away to figure out what else can I do to promote squash and I just got a great idea. This may be a weekly feature if time permit but it will be new for sure. Stay tune folks.

Happy squashing and cheers!

Season's Greetings

2009-12-25T09:55:00.001+08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers and everyone out there. May you all have a great time and keep squashing.

Cheers and take care.

Children and Sports

2009-12-07T22:13:00.003+08:00

Children (7-18 years old) play sports for a reason and that reason is and should be their own. My own research into the matter has unearthed the major reasons why kids drop out of sports halfway through. Generally there are 3 main reasons why they drop out: tertiary education, bad or improper coaching and parents. The last 2 leads to lost of interest in the sport or any sports. So this topic will be helpful to parents in understanding their roles they play in their child's sporting development. Children are still growing until they reach around the age of 20 +/-. They cannot be treated as adults. I attach 2 great reading pieces and hopefully it will help all parents out there. Pass the message to as many parents as possible and make sport enjoyable for all children.

Guidelines for Supportive Parents

David A. Feigley, Ph.D.
Youth Sports Research Council
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Few youth sports programs are successful without the support of parents. Below are a few guidelines which coaches can share with concerned parents who are striving to support their young athletes.

Supportive parents emphasize improved performance rather than competitive ranking.
The distinction between performance and outcome centers on what can be controlled. Mastering sport skills (a performance goal) can be totally controlled by the athlete, whereas, the number of wins and losses (an outcome measure) is frequently outside the athlete's control. An overemphasis on competitive rank and an underemphasis on sport mastery is a primary cause of the dramatic dropout rate by 12 to 18-year-olds.

Supportive parents decrease the pressure to win.
Competitive sports create the pressure to win. Additional pressure from the parent(s) is likely to be counterproductive, particularly in the long run. Supportive parents avoid making the outcome of the game bigger than life. As the game becomes blown out of proportion, a youngster's self?esteem can become tied to winning or losing. A child should not feel less valuable or less loved when they lose.

Supportive parents believe that sport's primary value is the opportunity for self-development.
The probability of achieving lasting fame and glory via sport is low. Approximately one out of a thousand high school athletes become professionals. Although many young athletes never achieve professional status, their sports experiences enabled them to develop life?long values and self-respect.

Supportive parents understand the risks.
Competition places the athlete on center stage. Anytime you attempt to succeed publicly, where others can judge you, you risk failing. Over time, competing is a willingness to chance failure. Giving your best is what athletics is all about.

Supportive parents communicate their true concerns directly with the coach.
A positive working relationship is based upon clearly communicated, mutual goals among parents, coaches and athletes. While a parent cannot control the behavior of a coach, they can communicate with the coach on a regular basis about the child's overall development.

Supportive parents understand and respect the differences between parental roles and coaching roles.
Both parents and coaches need to understand their different roles. While parents are ultimately responsible for their child's development, once they have selected a coach, they must leave the coaching to that person. Although many parents often recreate with their chil, they must resist coaching "over the shoulder" of the coach and/or publicly questioning the coaches decisions.

Supportive parents control negative emotions and think positively.
Few athletes wish to perform poorly. Negative reactions to poor performance only adds to an athlete's pressures. Supportive parents realize that even the athlete who "chokes" is trying to succeed. In fact, part of the problem with many athletes is that they are trying too had to succeed. Criticizing such athletes does little to enhance their performance.

Supportive parents avoid using fear.
Punishment and withdrawal of love can pressure kids to perform better. Unfortunately, such strategies tend to trade short-term performance gains for long?term emotional risks to the youngster's health and well?being. Supportive parents recognize that a love for sport is rarely fostered by fear of the consequences of failure.

Supportive parents avoid criticizing.
Nagging parents often confuse support with constantly reminding the children that they need to practice more, condition more, concentrate more, etc. Overly involved parents frequently lose their objectivity. They are unable to provide critical emotional support which children often need before and during highly competitive contests.

Supportive parents recognize and understand expressions of insecurity.
Youngsters who express high anxiety, more often than not, have parents who are insensitive to their symptoms. When children are nervous, uncertain, or feeling pressure, insensitive parents may trivialize the child's fears or see such concerns as signs of weakness. Supportive parents realize that such expressions are normal and are a call for emotional support.

Supportive parents avoid the use of guilt.
Statements such as, "We've done so much for you," or "The family has sacrificed so much, the least you could do . . . " are typical remarks of unsupportive parents. They often use guilt to manipulate the child to behave the way the parent(s) desire.

Supportive parents show empathy for their child.
Empathy is an understanding of what the child is feeling and an awareness of the pressures and demands that the sport places on the athlete. Empathy is not sympathy or agreement necessarily, but, rather, a true understanding that the task is difficult. A sympathetic response to an expression of doubt by a young athlete might be, "Perhaps, you're right; it's too difficult. Maybe you shouldn't compete today." Conversely, empathy by a supportive parent might be expressed as "Yes, it will probably be a tough match today. C'mon, let me help you get ready.

Parental Guidelines for Young Athletes
By Shaun Smith

Sports are great. They can teach your young children many of life’s toughest lessons; the joys of winning, the down of losing, not getting that job (getting cut from the team), the value of hard work and creating friendships. Although the benefits of sports cannot be argued the benefit of sports is often determined by the athlete’s parents. Parents are usually the most influential figures in a young athlete’s life. Many of our young athletes have been soured though by their parent’s reaction to sports. Young athletes look up to their parents and often will gauge their performances based on their parents’ reaction to how they played. But parents, how you affect your young athlete goes deeper then how you support your young athletes after a performance. Here is a brief document comprising a few pieces of advice that will help you to optimize your child’s experiences of sport. Start living these brief points and you will be ensuring that your young athlete will experience the positive results of playing sports. Here they are:

• Try to make your child’s experience of sport as fun and exciting as possible. Youth sports should be fun even after a loss. Often parents become consumed with the performance outcome of the competition that they forget that at a young age sport should be about enjoyment. Make it fun again for your young athlete and he will love coming to the sporting arena of choice every day.

• Don’t judge your athlete’s performance on the level of their performance. A successful game should be viewed as one where the young athlete has enjoyed their sport irrespective of their actual level of performance. At a young age, athletes are learning new skills. Just because Jimmy failed to pitch a no hitter or get a shutout does not mean that he will never make it as a professional athlete. He’s young, he’s learning, let him flourish and you will be thankful later.

• It is important to find out your child’s reasons for their participation and motivation in sport, rather than get stuck on your own. It is easy for parents to push their child for their own motivations, instead of letting them play for their own reasons. Regularly ask your children why they play their sport. You may be surprised to learn that they are playing because the equipment reminds them of being a robot or because they like to be with their friends. There is no reason for why your child plays sports unless the answer is because you want me to!

• A healthy and well-balanced lifestyle will impact positively on your young athlete’s performance. It is important to enforce a healthy diet, get the right amount of sleep, and develop the right balance between sport and academic commitments. Kids are growing! They need to eat right and get enough sleep to ensure that they can continue to have the energy to grow and play their sports. Don’t prioritize their sport above academic commitments regularly or you will be teaching them that school is not important. They may begin to hate school and want to quit when times get tough. All of these ingredients will help in building a successful young performer.

• As a parent it is important that you show respect for your child’s coaching staff, making sure that you maintain good lines of communication with them. Too often parents will voice their concerns or problems that they have with what the coach has done with their children. Your young athlete will feed off of this and lose respect for the coach or misinterpret what you have said about your coach to be negative and become confused if he should listen to his coach. If you have a problem with any of your child’s coaching staff, it is always to best to speak directly with the staff instead of taking matters into your own hands. Follow the following rule and you will keep your young athlete’s respect for their coach and have a good year: Never talk negatively about your coach or imply that your young athletes’ coach has done something wrong.

• Try to get your child to focus on being the best they can be, rather than focusing on being better than their fellow athletes and friends. Comparisons are very dangerous, because in sport there will always be athletes better than your child, and athletes that are worse than your child. Your child may think that he should get special treatment if you have compared him to his peers and become discouraged when he is not treated as the superstar that your comparison has created him to be. As well many young athletes may become frustrated because they will never be the best athlete in their sport. The chances of your child being the next great superstar like Wayne Gretzky or Tiger Woods is less likely than your chances of winning the lottery. Finally, many young athletes may begin to spend all their time comparing instead of playing the sport. The sport is supposed to be fun and by comparing constantly it becomes a competition not a arena to learn some valuable life skills and burn off energy. Try to get them to focus on their personal goals and achievements while ignoring the performances of others.

To conclude, parents you can have a huge impact of how your young athlete’s experience of sports goes. How you act and react before, during and after a sporting performance will have a huge impact on your young athlete’s enjoyment of sports in general. Next time that your young athlete is nearing his/her next sporting performance remember that the purpose of youth sport is to create an opportunity for the youths of our nation to have fun and grow. All the triumphs and heartbreaks that are part of winning and losing in sports can provide learning experiences and lessons that help pave the road to a successful adulthood. Remember they will eventually be looking after you!

True or False?

2009-11-06T07:30:00.006+08:00

Recently there are a few unsatisfied sounding letters in the newspaper by the public regarding squash and how it is handled. Read through below:

Develop bigger pool of talents (22/10, The Star)

I AGREE with the National Sports Council’s concern that Squash Rackets Association of Malaysia is not doing enough to develop young talents. The panic button should have been pressed a long time ago.

SRAM may disagree as they can quote you the numerous age group tournaments currently being held throughout the year to assist in unearthing young talents in squash. I do not deny that in terms of providing platforms to encourage talent in squash, Malaysia is among the best in the world.

However, it is what happens at the grassroots, state and eventually up to the national level that worries me. As in most sports, there is so much politicking going on within the association, both at the national and state levels, that its main objective to raise the level of the sport has become so obscured that it is no longer the priority of the association.

People are too busy manipulating and manoeuvring to ensure that their respective positions are safe and their personal interests are protected.

The development programmes at all levels should look into developing a bigger group of players instead of just focusing on one or two players. By developing bigger groups, this would translate to healthier competition.

State associations sometimes provide a chosen player with extra one-to-one coaching, sometimes at the expense of other players. When those not chosen – and their parents – see the disparity and become disgruntled as time goes on, the parents will just pull their children out of the programme.

Of course, the association would not feel impacted (and probably say good riddance) because that was what they wanted all along. But what they do not realise is that this could also mean that at some point in time, that chosen player may also become stagnant as he would not have the competition to spur him on further.

Due to this practice of focusing on one chosen player, it has also created an unhealthy atmosphere as parents will jostle and do whatever it takes to make sure that their child becomes the chosen one.

Things can get downright ugly and the association committee members do not do anything about it and at times seem to be encouraging it. I have seen this happening with my own eyes and I am sure the SRAM is also very much aware of this not just at the state but also the national level as well.

So until such time these practices and culture of favouritism are put to a stop, we would be so lucky if we can find a deserving heir to Nicol’s throne.

RAKYAT BIASA,

Petaling Jaya.

Put a stop to culture of favouritism in squash (27/10, The Star)

I COULDN’T agree more with Rakyat Biasa about the ugly atmosphere in the squash community as observed in the letter “Develop bigger pool of talents” (The Star, Oct 22).
In order to provide platforms to promote talent in squash in the country, we have to put a stop to the culture of favouritism immediately, be it at the state or national level.
In the selection of players,the coaches and the associations must choose the best players.
They should not make their decisions based on personal preferences and interest and the players should be selected based on merit and be treated fairly by all concerned.
Many a time, players (and their parents) who have fallen out of favour with the coaches or officials are sidelined and treated such that eventually they would give up the game altogether.
INTERESTED OBSERVER,
Subang Jaya.

Favouritism a major obstacle to squash glory (30/10, The Star)

I REFER to the letters “Develop bigger pool of talents” from Rakyat Biasa (The Star, Oct 22) and “Put a stop to culture of favouritism in squash” from Interested Observer (The Star, Oct 27). I agree with both writers that the atmosphere in the squash community is indeed very ugly.
The unhealthy practice of favouritism and double standards should be stopped immediately if we are serious about providing platforms to promote squash talents in Malaysia. All selections must be done fairly and be based on merit, not on personal preferences or other obscure reasons.
There are also some coaches or officials who are so pompous, arrogant and full of themselves that one wonders whether they are there to promote themselves or the sport.
So until such time the associations, both state and national, are manned by those who truly and honestly want to see Malaysian squash flourish, the current lack of potential top players in the country will remain status quo.
SPORTS LOVER,
Shah Alam.
Firstly, will you people who wrote this be man enough and contact me? Or are you just willing to hide behind pseudonyms? This is a direct challenge I am throwing to whoever has a concern, a honest concern of the sport rather than their own interest. For all I know, the writers maybe the ones who's kids did not make the grade.
Secondly, to build a bigger base? Will that ensure us better players? We already are having about 4 times more juniors from Nicol, Azlan or Beng Hee's time and yet no one is close to that level of play in the juniors. Plus, maybe the writers don't really know this, they all had a daily session of one to one with their respective coaches!
Thirdly, please, please and pretty please, do volunteer yourselves into do coaching or even get into the committee of the SRAs and then make the changes if you can. Try it and then see how "easy" it is.
There are some good points there to ponder if it is true. Transparency and accountability is an area to be looked into, or maybe dispersion of information, correct information. Unless you get to listen to all parties there maybe a biased or even totally wrong piece of info that goes around.
Full time coaches are provided to ensure that the talents are given special training to accelerate their progress and not to any player. Plus, how many players can one person handle? You don't see all the top players in the world sharing a coach, do you?
And as the sport becomes bigger and bigger with more people taking part in it, I am very sure more parents wants only what is best for their kids. I can go on and on about this but let's end it here.
Cheers and happy squashing.

Review of The WMT 2009

2009-10-17T12:52:00.002+08:00

Malaysia entered the tournament seeded 5th based on the rankings of Beng Hee and Azlan. And supported by Wan and Ivan who have been playing good the whole year, there was optimism within the camp. The draw was also good to us as we were supposed to meet South Africa in the last 16 and Australia in the quarters and so giving us a fighting chance for the semis if the team played well. All looked well and good for us.

So we beat Finland in our 1st pool match and as we came for our match against the USA, we found out that the Pakistani team had lost their pool tie against the South Africans. It meant that if we beat USA, we will play Pakistan while a lost to USA cannot be accepted just to play South Africa. A quick meeting with team and it was decided that if we are good enough, we will beat Pakistan. So it was set. How Pakistan lost their match is not known as there were many theories.

So we ended up losing to Pakistan 2-1 with Azlan getting our only point. Beng Hee was outplayed by Farhan who played like his life depended on it and honestly, Wan was very unlucky not to have won. (refs not helping with crazy & inconsistent decisions) Our best on the day was not good enough. The players gave their best efforts but form was not phenomenal although it was good.

And good enough for us to finish the rest of our matches 3-0 to eventually end up 9th. So was it a failure? Finishing 9th was but I'd rather lose this to Pakistan now instead of the Asian Games next year in China. The silver lining is that our 3rd and 4th players are now very much stronger compared to previous outings and can be depended to get us through on a good day instead of rolling over. I can see Wan and Ivan continuing their improvements if they can keep their desire to move up the rankings burning hot as it is now.

The loss is also a sign to SRAM not to depend too much on just the cream of the crop but support the rest to build an environment conducive to develop more talents and players. Keeping players playing to an age of 27-30 in the country is the key. The more players at this level, the more benefits the juniors and future players will reap from it.

Till next time, cheers.

World Team Championships

2009-09-23T18:59:00.012+08:00

Day 6 (1/10/09)

We had Germany today and winning it meant that we would be playing for 9/10 placing. Order of play was 3-1-2 and Wan was out on court against Raphael Kandra who is still a junior. Wan started strongly and won won the 1st 11-5 but lost a little bit of focus couple with Kandra's determined running, lost the 2nd 11-4. The 3rd and 4th was tight but Wan always was a couple of points ahead and thus putting us 1-0 up.

Azlan was up against Jens Schoor and the initial few points were long, with Schoor running and Azlan dominating. Bit by bit Azlan inched further and further away and closed it 11-5. The 2nd game was similar except Schoor managed to play a few more great shots. Azlan closed the 2nd game 11-8 and Schoor was a spent force in the 3rd after a few titanic rallies in the initial few points which Azlan closed out 11-4.

Beng Hee was on for the dead rubber against a 36 year old Stefan Leifels. Even though it was a dead rubber, Leifels made a game of it and won the 1st 13-11 but paid the price of that effort and lost the next 2 11-6, 11-6.

Tomorr0w we play New Zealand for the 9/10 placing.

You can follow the tournament on Squashsite and there is also live streaming of matches.

Day 5 (1/10/09)

Ireland today and we were confident of it. Order of play was 1-2-3 and so Azlan was 1st out against Liam Kenny. Playing on the glass court yesterday and moving to the wall courts today was not an easy transition as the bounce is very different and Azlan took a little time to adapt. Kenny was trying his best and Azlan was patient enough to take his time and made Kenny work for 2 games before it paid off. 11-9, 11-7, 11-2 to Azlan and Malaysia 1 up.

Beng Hee was next up against Arthur Gaskin and he started of well winning 11-4. But Arthur managed to find his rhythm when Beng Hee was leading 6-2 in the 2nd and partly due to Beng Hee getting complacent which Arthur won 12-10. Beng Hee tighten up and easily won the 3rd 11-1 but then again lost the 4th due to complacency. Going back to basics, he closed the match 11-6 in the 5th and sealed the tie 2-0 to Malaysia.

Ivan was up against Derek Ryan who is a former to 10 player retired about 6 years ago in the dead rubber. A pumped up Ivan who is making his debut raced through the 1st game 11-2 but was made to work a little harder to win the 2nd 11-7 and seal the tie 3-0 to Malaysia.

Players were still disappointed with the loss to Pakistan but they were very professional in getting the job done today. They were up for breakfast and the to practice to do the best job possible.

Tomorrow we play Germany for the 9-12 placing.

Day 4 (30/9/09)Pakistan vs Malaysia in the last 16 was a joke and most people here in Odensse were asking questions. We were not perturbed about that even though we had an option of losing to USA yesterday to avoid Pakistan and play South Africa instead. The team decided otherwise and so here we are today facing Pakistan.

The order of play was 2-1-3 and so it was Beng Hee against Farhan Mehboob. The last few meetings were very close and today we were anticipating the same. But Farhan had other ideas and started off pretty cautious and safe. And by doing that he won the 1st game 11-7. Farhan the decided to be more adventurous and started to go for his shot and they came in. Everything he tried became gold and he won it 11-2. Beng Hee was not playing bad just that Farhan was in the form of his life. Beng Hee tighten up his game in the 3rd and farhan was a little anxious to finish it quick allowed Beng Hee to win the 3rd. It was neck and neck till 5-5 before Farhan raced to a 8-5 lead. At this juncture, Farhan played a forehand volley cross court nick and Beng Hee pick it up cleanly and certainly good. However to the dismay of the team and the crowd, the ref called it down. That took the fight out of Beng Hee and he lost the match. Pakistan 1-0 up.

Azlan the stepped on court with Amir Atlas and it was again a slow start by Azlan and Amir raced to a 6-3 lead. Azlan slowly reigned him in with long punishing hard rallies and he just tipped it 12-10. Amir started out the 2nd going for his shots but azlan was patient enough to wait for his chances and took a 7-2 lead before Amir retired. Now the score was 1-1.

Wan was up against Yasir Butt and we were hoping that Yasir was having a continuation of bad day from yesterday. Wan was pumped up and started off pretty well and won the 1st 11-7. Yasir then came out in the 2nd with guns blazing and Wan lost his discipline and lost that 11-2. The 3rd, Wan started slowly and was behind most of the match. He however managed to keep close enough to force a tie break and had a chance to get into a lead at 10-10 but clipped the tin on his backhand drop and lost 12-10. The 4th, Wan was just ahead most of the time and at 7-5 up, the ref refused Wan a let. He put that aside and went 8-6 up and again the ref refused him a legitimate let. Again he put it aside to get to 9-7 and for the 3rd time was refused a let in a situation where everyone in the gallery was astonished and appaled by that decision. The team was in disbelieve and Wan was wondering what was he supposed to do. He had his chances to close it but failed and Yasir won it 11-9 and the match for Pakistan.

I will never blame the ref for causing us to lose matches but on this occcasion we were very hard done by the ref. The team and I believe that with better decisions, we may have stolen it as Yasir was tiring. The team is gutted but there is nothing that can be done except to pick ourselves up and aim to finish 9th. I have to say that I am proud that the players came together and gave their best but that was not enough to secure a win.

Plus side is that I prefer the lost now rather than the Asian Games next year as this can allow us to take remedial actions. Ireland will be our opponents tomorrow for positions 9-16.

Day 3 (29/9/09)
We played the USA today and won the tie comfortably 3-0. Order of play was 3-1-2 and so Wan was on court with Preston Quick. Wan raced quickly to win the 1st game 11-4 in just 8 minutes. Preston however settled down and slowly lengthen the rallies and pushed Wan all the way to a tie break which Wan won 15-13. All credit to Preston, he still fought and hard and lost the 3rd also in a tie break 12-10.

Azlan was up next and was hoping to make amends for yesterday's lost. He started off well and and was in control against Julian Illingworth. Julian then tighten his game a little and managed to squeeze the 2nd in a tie break 12-10. Azlan was not happy with the loss and upped the pace but Julian kept in touch till halfway where Azlan pulled away and closed it out 11-9. The 4th was an easier affair where Julian was just trying his shots and Azlan duly finished it 11-6.

Beng Hee was left to finish up against a determined Gilly Lane. The 1st game was 20 mins with Gilly winning it 12-10. It wasn't that Beng Hee was playing bad, just that Gilly was running and getting everything back. However that took a lot out of Gilly and Beng Hee upped the pace and won the next 2 games 11-4 and 11-2 in about 15 mins. Gilly collected himself and pushed hard but Beng Hee was in command and was 10-6 up. Complacency crept in and Gilly closed up to 10-9 but Beng Hee closed it up with a short drive that hit the nick.

Tomorrow we play Pakistan in the last 16 round. The Pakistanis were upset by a gritty South Africans 2-1. Yasir Butt and Amir Atlas Khan lost 3-2 respectively and thus having to play us.

Day 2 (28/9/09)

Today we played a motivated Finland who wanted to upset us real bad as to make up for their lost to the USA yesterday. The order of play was 1-3-2 and so Azlan was up against Ollie Touminen. Ollie was pretty determined to give Finland a good start and bol
ted off like a rocket. The game was very fast and he never let Azlan settle down, plus Azlan was struggling with the bounce of the court. Ollie took the 1st game comfortably but Azlan fought back and won the 2nd with some great squash. However, Ollie who seems to be more comfortable on the court upped the pace again and Azlan could not keep up and lost the match 3-1. As hard as Azlan tried, Ollie looked very comfortable on court with his timing to and on the ball.

Wan was up next against Rasheed Hameed and started off a little hesitant. It was point for point till around 7-7 before Wan managed to nudge ahead and sealed the 1st game. Then it was smooth sailing from there onwards and Wan tied the match for us with a comprehensive 3-0 win.

The decider was between old and young, Beng Hee and Henrik Mustonen who is just 18 (maybe younger). Beng Hee took it too easy and Henrik Was so fired up that he looked like a younger Ollie. Henrik won the 1st easily and was gameball up in the 2nd before Beng Hee woke up and closed up the match 3-1. The match was so much like an exhibition match with Beng Hee trying to play the front as much as he can and Henrik ran his heart out picking up and hitting beautiful counter drops to stun Beng Hee.

All our players were complaining about the inconsistent bounce of the ball and it had effected them a little. Tomorrow we play USA and that will be on the glass court. Hopefully that is better.

Day 1 (27/9/09)

The tournament started today and we were in Pool E with Finland and USA. Our decided line up is to play Azlan, Beng Hee, Wan and Ivan in that order. We had a bye today and used it for practice and getting use to the bounce of the courts. Finland played USA with the US winning it 2-1 but only just. We play Finland tomorrow.

Your Opportunity

2009-08-29T00:06:00.004+08:00

I got this email today and I thought it would be interesting to share it with all you squash enthusiast to be able to hear the SRAM President live on radio. You may have the opportunity to ask him a few questions if you manage to get on air through the phone lines. Details are as follows:

Dear All,

Kindly be informed that the President of SRAM, YBhg Dato’ A.Sani Karim would be on air with very experienced sports commentators. They would be in discussion in the programme ‘Sports Talk and You’, on the radio channel TraXXFM, this Sunday (30 August, 2009), from 10.30 am to 11.00 am.

Be rest assured that these very knowledgeable sports commentators of many decades, in Chris Syer, Ronnie Atkinson and Jesse Van Riessen, would be posing very pointed questions to Dato’. From the questions and the answers from the President himself, Malaysians would have a clearer picture of the direction SRAM would take moving forward to achieve our Vision and Mission.

These sports commentators would beside posing questions on competition, junior programmes, coaching and sponsorships, would definitely venture to pose challenging questions like ‘Where forth after Ong Beng Hee and Azlan’ and ‘Who after Dato’ Nicol’.

Having been a regular listener of this programme, I would highly recommend that all of us in the squash fraternity, tune in to listen to their discussion on the future of squash in Malaysia.

TraXXFM comes on the following frequencies in Malaysia (tune in to the location nearest to you) –

North Johor: Tangkak (97.4), JB (102.9), Bukit Tinggi (92.9),

Kedah: Baling (91.7), Gurun (98.7),

Kelantan : Kota Baru (104.7), Jeli (90.8), Bukit bakar (98.5),

KL, Selangor & West Pahang : (90.3/100.1)

Malacca : (97.4)

Negeri Sembilan, South Selangor : (88.7)

Pahang : Kuantan (105.3), Jerantut (89.9),

Perak : Taiping (105.3), Ipoh (90.1)

Perlis & Penang : (98.7)

Sabah : Gunung Kinabalu (105.3), Kota Belud (102.5)

Sarawak : Bintulu (98.5), Miri (104.5),

Terengganu : Kuala Terengganu (89.7), Dungun (98.9), Besut (97)

Pass the word around and do not forget to keep this Sunday free for squash.

Many thanks.

Warm Regards,

K.Sivanesen

Hon. Secretary SRAM

Cheers and happy squashing.

Aftermath of the Squash 2016 Bid

2009-08-17T18:51:00.002+08:00

Missing out on the Olympics, is it a big deal? Some say yes and some say no. Read the following and decide if we were good enough for the Olympics.

The news that squash was not selected as one of two sports to go forward to the big IOC vote in October was disappointing enough. To learn that the sport failed to register a single vote at the IOC meeting in Berlin yesterday was devastating.

Let’s consider that position.

No votes at all. Zero. Nil points. Nothing. A total blank.

That’s where we are, folks. Not even on the radar when it came to the big IOC vote.

In squash terms, it was like the ultimate humiliation of a triple-bagel scoreline.

After golf and rugby sevens got the nod, ahead of squash and four other sports, IOC President Jacques Rogge said: “In the end, the decision came down to which two sports would add the most value.”

That’s protocol shorthand for “these two sports will make the most money for us”. I have written many times in the past about this subject and perhaps Mr Rogge’s admission proves that the IOC places higher value on commercial success than sporting integrity.

We were always led to believe that the ideals and moral values of the Olympic Games meant that we were watching the purest form of sport in the world. However, by adopting a “variety” of a major sport, as in the case of rugby sevens, it is like having the synchronised swimming and diving but without any actual swimming events.

Lots of raw emotions came tumbling out from squash lovers yesterday as the IOC decision was announced. There were bitter criticisms of the IOC on Facebook and various squash forums, plus one or two minor snipes at the squash governing bodies, but let’s examine Mr Rogge’s statement in depth.

In terms of the IOC’s commercial activities, large American corporations who sponsor the Games, and the TV networks that pay large sums for the broadcasting rights, must surely have some kind of input into the decision-making process. We would be rather naïve to expect otherwise.

The TV broadcasters know they can sell prime-time advertising slots for commercials during the golf and rugby sevens competitions, but squash does not enjoy the same kind of profile.

That’s not surprising. I hope I don’t get lynched at the US Open in Chicago for saying this, but ask any American about squash and 99 per cent of them will tell you it’s a vegetable. Most of the other one per cent think it’s a kind of racketball.

If you don’t believe me, set up a Google Alert to have any article about squash sent to your email inbox. You will soon be inundated with all kinds of recipes about what to do with left-over squash.

So, in terms of product recognition, we are not performing terribly well in the world’s major economy.

This is despite a vibrant governing body, a booming College League and a growing number of professional tournaments in the USA, which is rapidly becoming a major magnet for many of the world’s leading coaches.

All things considered, perhaps it’s not too surprising that an excellent presentation by the WSF for a sport that ticks all of the necessary Olympic boxes failed to make any headway.

So, where do we go from here? Our priorities as a sport must be to raise the profile of squash at all levels, increase participation levels, fight court closures and deliver high-quality TV coverage on a regular basis throughout the world.

I am preparing a dossier for the WSF with a selection of ideas as to how we can achieve this and look forward to reporting back in due course.

I do know that one brave individual is attempting to mount a legal challenge aimed at proving that the IOC’s voting procedure in Singapore four years ago, when squash and karate were voted in at the first stage and then removed by a subsequent second round of voting, was illegal.

By ALAN THATCHER

Squash ideally fulfills all of the Olympic Charter but that seems to be insufficient nowadays. Ever since the '76 Montreal Games that bankrupt the city, all subsequent hosts were adament to avoid the same path as Montreal. And over the next 2 decades, hosting the Games has been a huge money making machine for the hosts and the IOC.

I believe that squash is still far behind a lot of sports in terms of commercialism and that is MAIN factor we were not selected for the Games. Unless the WSF together with WISPA and PSA start improving and sets benchmarks like FIFA or ATP to emulate with a master plan on how to attain that status, we are doomed to be the poor cousins of all racket sports.

Good news is that we as Malaysians can still produce world class squash players as most of the top countries will focus on the Olympics. Imagine the competition if China, US and even Great Britain had the Olympic funds, how are we to compete with 20mil USD?

Till next time, cheers and happy squashing.

Squash 2016- The Olympic Bid

2009-08-14T10:39:00.002+08:00

Squash has failed in getting into the 2016 Olympic at the very first step. Instead, golf and rugby 7 will be the 2 sports that will proceed into the IOC Council voting process where they will try to get the simple majority to get inclusion into the Olympics.

There are mixed reactions towards this decision with joy from golf and rugby supporters while anger and despair from squash supporters. I just hope that the WSF with PSA and WISPA continue to develop and market the sport without the Olympics to attain similar status and glamour with tennis and badminton. Heck, even table tennis is more glamourous than squash.

Cheers and happy squashing.

NSC Series 8

2009-08-13T14:18:00.007+08:00

1st Round

The Series 8 started on Monday with the qualifyings and yesterday with the 1st rounds. The women seem to be doing better than the men but that is expected of it. As normal, I did not watch any women's matches so you have to rely on other alternative reports.

For the men's side, we had 6 men in the main draw but only 1 made pass the 1st round and it is Asyraf who beat Kamran in 4. It was tight in the 1st 2 games where it both went to tie breakers and were shared with Kamran taking the 1st and Asyraf taking the 2nd. Asyraf then kept his nose ahead and with that closed out the match 3-1.

Elvinn played the top seed, Omer Abdul Aziz and lost 3-0 but had his chances in the 2nd and 3rd. Elvinn had gameball 10-7 in the 2nd but could not close it while it was neck and neck in the 3rd all the way.

Jam played Nicholas Muller and also lost 3-0 in a close match especially in the 1st 2 games. Again it was neck and neck in the 1st and Jam had gameball 10-7 in the 2nd but like Elvinn, he just could not finish it. Muller then ran out comfortably in the 3rd as Jam ran out of steam to compete.

Kam Hing was always a step behind Yasir Butt and although he tried hard, there was no way he was going to change the result. A lot of hardwork still needs to be done to ensure he progress to a competitive level.

Ivan actually had a tough opponent in Steve Finitis who is experienced and that showed immediately as Steve imposed his authority over Ivan from the start by punishing every ball that was short or loose. Ivan on the other hand was playing exactly how Steve wanted him to play, impatient and going for shots. That enabled Steve to control the match and Ivan was running all over. By the 3rd, Ivan was lost and crumbled.

Quarterfinals

With only Asyraf in the quarters for the boys, it looked very bleak for Malaysia to get something bearing in mind he was up against the top seed, Omer Abdul Aziz. But Omer was not impressive in his win agaist Elvinn the previous day and so Asyraf had a chance if he could take it. Asyraf started off well taking the first 2 games by being himself, unafraid of his opponents reputation and being absolutely cheeky with gamesmanship which riled Omer. But that took a bit out of Asyraf and Omer staged a fightback and secured the 3rd and 4th with Asyraf looking very tired. Omer was looking confident while Asyraf was very quiet.

The 5th however was the best squash from Asyraf I have seen in the last 3 months, focused and disciplined. He slowed down the game, kept it deep and straight and pick on the loose shots from Omer with deadly straight drops. Asyraf won it 11-4 and Omer was in disbelief. He came out ranting at the referee for being lenient, abused Asyraf by calling him a cheat and used vulgarities and called me a cheat as well for asking Asyraf to use gamesmanship or unethical tactics. I have never done it and will never do it as Asyraf being Asyraf will do things his was. Anyway, if Asyraf can produce the 5th game all the time, he will be good but at the moment, I doubt it.

The women's side we had 3 girls and 2 of them got to the semis. Wee wern had no troubles beating Song Sung Mi 3-0 and Siti pulled a great win by beating the 4th seed Emma Beddoes 3-2 in a marathon battle. Siti deserves the wins as she has been working very hard for the last few months. Sharon however lost to Lauren Siddal in another marathon, having matchball in the process. Plenty of decisions in that match as Sharon was reading Lauren's drops and Lauren being big and tall was slightly slow in clearing with resulted in a lot of lets. That made Lauren very upset but she hung on to beat Sharon.

Semifinals

Asyraf made a very poor start against a very disciplined and aggresive Nicholas Muller losing the 1st easily. Asyraf then started tightening his game and fought back to win the 2nd in a tie break to even the match. It was neck and neck in the 3rd till 7-7 and then Muller pulled away. 4th game was very close with Muller eventually winning 13-11. A good show by Asyraf in terms of discipline squash but just lacks the aggression in taking the ball early and clinical finishing. He was a little sloppy with the easy chances that were presented to him and that cost him.

Wee wern was up against Aisling and what a marathon it was, 85 minutes in all. Wee Wern was 2-1 and matchball up but could not finish it. She then went a little too safe and Aisling was pretty much comfortable in the 5th leading all the way by 2 points all the time. Wee Wern made too many unforced errors on her easy drops and cost her the match which was at least 5 per game. Too high for squash at this level and needs to work on it.

Siti was determined to prove that she was not lucky in beating Emma who had a tough 5 setter in the 1st round. But Lauren's sheer power proved the difference, constant hammering of the ball kept Siti on her back foot throughout the first 2 games. Siti managed to slow it down and squeezed the 3rd but then lauren upped the pace again in the 4th. As hard as Siti tried, there was no stopping Lauren winning that 11-0.

So no Malaysian in the finals. Hard luck to the trio especially Wee Wern. Work harder and try again the next time. I would have to say that Siti has impressed me with her display in this series of tournaments with some good results and performances. Well done and continue the hard work.

Check Squashsite for the results. Cheers and happy squashing!