Iskandar bags boy’s title

KUALA LUMPUR: Top Malaysian junior Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin rose to the occasion and bagged the boys’ singles title in the Dutch International Junior Championships in Harleem yesterday.

The 18-year-old, who won the Asean Schools singles title last year, fought tooth-and-nail to beat top seed Pedro Martins of Portugal 9-21, 21-15, 21-17 for his first major junior international title.

With the win yesterday, he becomes the third Malaysian to win the junior title in Holland since the tournament’s inception in 1988.

The two previous winners were Mohd Arif Abdul Latif (2006) and Lim Fang Yang (2007).

One of the current prominent players to have won the title was China’s Lin Dan in 2001.

World junior championship quarter-finalist Iskandar however, failed to make it a double joy for Malaysia after going down fighting in the mixed doubles event with Tee Jing Yee.

The duo gave a good fight before losing 21-14, 13-21, 20-22 to In­­do­ne­sians Mohd Ulinuha-Jenna Gozali in the final.

Malaysia’s challenge in the boys’ and girls’ doubles ended with the defeats of the Chooi Kah Ming-Pang Zheng Lin and Sonia Cheah-Jing Yee in semi-final matches.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 1:17 PM. Filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0