JOHOR BAHRU – Malaysian squash sisters Aifa Azman-Aira Azman proved the pundits right when they won the women’s title after beating fellow teammates Nor Ainaa Amani Ampandi-Chan Yiwen in the finals of the 2024 Asian Squash Doubles Championship in Gold Arena, Skudai here today.
Aira expressed her satisfaction with their achievement even though she was still nursing an injury sustained during yesterday’s semi-final against Hong Kong as the sisters lived up to their first seed position and shut down their opponents 11-6, 11-7.
“As top seeds in this event, we admit feeling the pressure to do our best, but everything turned out according to plan till we managed to win the event.
“It wasn’t an easy victory as we faced fitness issues after going through 11 matches in four days,” she said, while her sister Aifa said she was relieved and proud of their win, especially when they were not doing that well during training.
“I’m glad about the game this time and I want to thank my sister who played a lot and she put in a lot of effort to ensure we won in the final.
“We do train together with Ainaa and Yiwen but our performance wasn’t that great.
“During the match, we managed to prove we had chemistry and Aira helped immensely in winning points till we won the title. I hope this win will spur us to take on several more crucial championships this year,” she said.
Meanwhile, national men’s pair Ong Sai Hung-Mohd Syafiq Kamal had to make do with second place after losing to Indian pair Abhay Singh-Belavan Senthilkumar 4-11, 5-11 in the men’s final. – July 7, 2024