Tuesday February 12, 2013

Tennis gets the nod for 2014 Sukma in Perlis

KUALA LUMPUR: Tennis, which suffered a double blow recently, has been included in next year’s Malaysian Games (Sukma) in Perlis.

A decision to drop the Olympic sport from this year’s Sukma in Kuala Lumpur, from June 26-July 7, hit a raw nerve with most of the state associations.

Sabah Tennis Association (SBA) president Johnson Koh even cried foul.

The sport has also been dropped from the Myanmar SEA Games later this year.

Yesterday, Sukma organising committee deputy chairman Datuk Abdul Jalil Abdullah said that they had not overlooked tennis.

“The Cabinet made a decision in 2010 to host Sukma annually and that each state will not host more than 30 sports. We agreed that it will be held alternately between Kuala Lumpur (organised by the National Sports Council) and the states. In 2011, we had it in Kuala Lumpur and last year it was held in Pahang,” said Abdul Jalil.

“We try to give all the sports a chance. Perlis, has agreed to host tennis next year and that’s why we have not included it in the programme this year. We will meet all the state representatives on Feb 16 to update them.

“Perlis is building a new cycling velodrome, squash centre, shooting range and renovating their aquatic centre so that they will have sufficient facilities to host the Games.”

As for the Kuala Lumpur Sukma, Jalil said that preparation was going on smoothy.

“In fact, we had a meeting last week to fine-tune our preparation. The Games Village for Sukma will be located in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). The Games will be held during the varsity’s semester break. We are hosting 24 sports,” said Jalil, who is also the NSC’s sports management division director.

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