KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 19 — The men’s, women’s and mixed doubles for squash will be contested for the first time at the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games.

Squash competition will be held from August 21 to 29 for six other categories namely men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s jumbo doubles as well as men’s and women’s team events.     

Malaysia who will be taking part in seven of the nine events, will skip the jumbo events and are expected to sweep all the gold medals and emerged as overall squash champions at the 29th SEA Games.

Team manager Nik Razeen A Daud said squash doubles is not a popular event and is usually not competed at world level.

"In the SEA Games, this is the first time we are competing... when Malaysia proposed the event, all participating countries reacted positively,” he said.

"I believe Malaysia would be able to rake in all three doubles events as the performance of our competitors have been gauged at the 3rd Southeast Asian Cup Squash Championship 2017 in Sarawak, early this year,” he said.

The national squash squad comprised Ng Eain Yow, Mohammad Syafiq Mohd Kamal, Muhammad Addeen Idrakie Bahtiar, Mohd Farez Izwan Mohd Mukhtar, Sanjay Singh Chal, Ryan Neville Pasqual, Ong Sai Hung, P.Darren Rahul, S.Sivasangari, Rachel Arnold, Andrea Lee Jia Qi, Aifa Azman, Chan Tiwen, Lai Wen Li, Nazihah Hanis Abd Razak and Ooi Kah Yan.

For the men’s team event, Malaysia have been drawn in group A with Indonesia and Thailand while Singapore, Philippines and Myanmar are in group B.

For the women’s team event, Malaysia are in group A with Philippines and Thailand while Indonesia, Singapore and Myanmar make up group B.

In the 2015 Singapore SEA Games, Malaysia took four of the five gold medals offered via men’s singles, men’s team, women’s singles and women’s team events. — Bernama