KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 — Malaysia has once again been honoured to host the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis tournament which is scheduled to be held at the National Tennis Centre in Jalan Duta here from July 24-29.
Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM) president Mirzan Mahathir said the governing body would ensure that the international-level tournament under the International Tennis Federation (ITF) participated by 12 countries including Malaysia, was managed better than last year.
At the same time, he said the national squad should take full advantage of playing on home ground as the tournament is being held in Malaysia for two consecutive years in order to achieve the goal of the national team being promoted to Group One of the tournament.
“It’s not always that great teams come to play here so our players need to take advantage of this opportunity,” he said at the press conference announcing the tournament today.
The other countries taking part in the tournament are New Zealand, Pakistan, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Singapore, Turkmenistan, Guam, Taiwan and Sri Lanka.
In the meantime, competition director Shahizan Hasnan said LTAM was in the final phase of selecting the national squad for the tournament.
“We will announce the list of players in the near future and Olympic Council of Malaysia (OCM) president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria is scheduled to officiate the tournament,” he said. — Bernama
