MALAYSIAN PRIVATE JUNIOR TOURNAMENTS

From the statistics of Aaron’s results, he has progressed well in his age group (under 10). My wife has been urging me to hunt for junior tournaments for him to participate in before he turns 10 on October 2013. Technically, he is still 9. 

SINGLES COMPETITION RECORDS
	RYAN				AARON
	PLAY	WIN	LOST	% wins	PLAY	WIN	LOST	% wins
Career	26	15	11	58%	27	19	8	70%
2013	4	1	3	25%	11	9	2	82%

When it comes to private junior tournaments, there are no lack of it throughout the year organized by various private academies and associations. In my opinion, the Kuala Lumpur Sports School Council tops them all in terms of size and quality of participation. Supported by commercial sponsors, they have attracted many serious youngsters and their parents alike from other states.

By and large, many of the private grassroots tournaments have rather poor publicity largely due to lack of funds. Much of these events are passed on by word of mouth by closed circles who are so called in the game. At least in the Klang Valley, many of these tournaments are freely accessible via internet which is where most of my source of information comes from. Sadly for outstation tournaments, these are not so readily available.

Unfortunately, the results of these private tournaments are largely ignored by BAM. The fate of the thousands of young hopefuls now rest on only two obscure routes. Firstly, via the traditional convention of representing their school team and gradually make their way up through district level (MSSD) and then state level (MSSN). Secondly, by scouting which is by no means an easy endeavour. Unless the child is an exceptional player like Goh Jin Wei from Penang, whereby Singapore was on the brink of snatching her away before BJSS offered her a place among the elite - otherwise only the privilege few and the influential may see better life.

Of all the junior tournaments I discovered so far, non have more significance than the one organized by Selangor Badminton Association (SBA) which is open to all budding shuttlers who resides in Selangor. In this tournament SBA will hand pick promising players to refill their talent warehouse as Selangor future state players.

Another point I like to point out in the hope that some good souls from BAM can make a change to this, is the lack of regulatory system in the Malaysian grassroots badminton development. I was to understand in Indonesia, all players (in every age group category) have a registered record of all the sanctioned tournaments they participated in. Each one earns points from the tournaments and is ranked thereby providing a transparent system for each player to be tracked on their progress ala BWF system. This also enables organizers to seed players accordingly for a fair tournament draw. Unless we see some light to this by high badminton authorities, our grassroots development will by and large remain a badminton backwater.

As for the boys, like the thousands who continue to remain hopeful will have no choice but to fend for themselves as long as they remain irrelevant by BAM. The irony is that the country has yet to find an answer to Datuk Lee Chong Wei’s successor when his days will come to pass – very soon.