By Aliaa Nur Diyana
GOMBAK, 13 June 2022: The national female squash player, S. Sivasangari, successfully seized her former title as the champion of the women’s premier division in the final stage of the 37th National Squash Championships, after defeating Aifa Azman by scoring 3-1 at the National Squash Centre, Bukit Jalil, on Sunday (12 June).
Experience does make a difference when Sivasangari, who is the 19th world-ranking squash player, marked her victory by earning 12-10, 9-11, 11-6 and 11-9 within 33 minutes.
The victory marks her second time receiving the title after her first appearance as champion in the 2018 championship before she got defeated in the following year during the semi-finals.
In the 2020 championship, she was again defeated, but this time by Low Wee Wern in the final stage.
“Of course, I feel absolutely satisfied for winning my second national title, because we can see that Aifa has improved a lot and has fixed the ranking…today is clearly an intense match, I am delighted to hold onto my game plan and it worked well and I am proud to finish the match in four sets,” said Sivasangari.
“I was in a rush in the second set, tried to make a quick counterattack and was also struggling with my movements. So as I managed to recover, I tried to play with ease and I thought it was worth it,” said Sivasangari after the match.
Meanwhile, it can be seen in the male category that Ng Eain Yow managed to create his own history as he celebrated his first national title after he drew a successful triumph against the four-time champion, Ivan Yuen with the score 3-0.
The 24-year-old player only required 24 minutes by scoring 11-6, 11-3 and 11-2 and subsequently, placed his name along with the prominent national squash player that was once crowned the title in the national championship.
“I am more happy with my own performance as compared to winning the title because this is going to be my preparation to face the Commonwealth Games next month. I feel that today’s achievement is for me to go one step ahead in terms of managing the tension, so I am fully content,” said Ng Eain Yow.
When asked about what caused his improvement in the last three years, Ng said this was due to his collective exposure from joining several international championships aside from going through training with the world’s best players.
“I also trained with two of the top 10 world-ranked players and always participate in big tournaments to gain experience,” said Ng Eain Yow. ***
Source: BERNAMA