KUALA LUMPUR — The Squash Rackets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) are hoping for another gold medal at the Asian Games after the women’s team contributed one gold medal from the team event yesterday.
Without specifically saying who has been targeted to deliver the gold medal, SRAM president Gerard Monteiro said the players from the women’s squad are capable of winning another gold.
“I don’t want to put any pressure on the players, but three gold medals are offered in individual events, so we are hoping to capture at least one.
“In the team event, they did a good job, Rachel Arnold lost very narrowly but S. Sivasangari and Aifa Azman did very well and I’m proud of them.
“We are very happy about the result because we have at least won the first gold and that is the first lead, a little bit of pressure is off, so there is less pressure on the players for the individual events,” he said.
Yesterday, Malaysia wrested the gold medal from defending champion Hong Kong in the women’s team event since Malaysia, who won the gold at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, lost the gold at the 2018 edition.
Hong Kong snatched the gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia after beating Malaysia.
Meanwhile, SRAM coaching director Major (Rtd) S. Maniam was even more optimistic by predicting our players can deliver two gold medals through individual and mixed doubles events.
“We can hope for two more gold medals from the individual and mixed doubles because all the doubles and singles players have a chance of doing well, one of them will probably deliver the gold for us,” he said.
Maniam said SRAM will discuss the prospect of rewarding those who contributed medals for the country.
Sivasangari and Aifa will be heading the country’s challenge in the women’s individual event while the mixed doubles challenge will be on the shoulders of Aifa-Mohammad Syafiq Mohd Kamal and Rachel-Ivan Yuen. — October 1, 2023