Finishing 2023 with a flourish

   What a finish it was in 2023 as Kiera created a historic win over SBA GU13 No. 1 Siti Nuramina in the SBA Closed 2023 on Dec 2023. This was the prelude to the 2024 JET tournament organised annually by BAM. Siti Nuramina the top seed, who hailed from the formidable Azman family that produced a string of National badminton siblings of Siti’s uncles and aunties, held the record as untouchable for a good 3 years before Kiera seed 2, broke this psychological barrier in the final won in three sets 17 – 21; 21 – 18; 21 - 6. 

   Prior to this SBA Closed victory, Kiera had already risen steadily to win some local tournaments including Skyworth Tops Arena, MSSD, Allianz KL, TAE Junior, SSA Finals and Olimpik Muda where she had displayed her mettle and game adaptation to overcome her adversaries. 

  In the SSA finals, Kiera overcame the odds to upset Chanice Tan by 1 point; 30 – 29 in a hard fought battle to emerge Champion in the GSU13 and also the GSU15 category. Going into this final match vs Chanice, Kiera’s head to head record was 0 – 4 in favour of Chanice. Chanice Tan also emerged Champion in the SBA Closed in the GSU15 category. 

   In the Allianz Finals, Kiera was halted by the country’s GSU13 No. 1, the shuttle queen, Low Zi Yu in the semi finals losing 14 – 21, 15 – 21 and a good bench mark and experience for Kiera. Kiera will take a short break for Christmas, to recover her tight IT band before resuming her preparation for JET at the end of Feb 2024. I hope I can find some time to share her progress here as I have landed a job and have been extremely busy. Will see. Stay tuned!

 https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/tournament/draw?id=E5DA7CAE-8CEE-4846-A72C-378D86F8C62F&draw=6