South Africa’s junior squash prodigy Awande Malinga took a bow from the Malaysian 13th KL Junior Open Squash Championships held in Kuala Lumpur from the 3 to the 8 of December. Malinga was part of the South African team representing Mzansi schools and she successfully won five games against higher seeds opponents.
Although she suffered a loss in the 6th game against Ling Yu Au of Hong Kong which led to her end of the road in Malaysia, she dramatically finished up in number 9 after having an initial being 17/32 seed in U/15. The 14-year-old says she is happy with her performance.
After the doubts of whether the Gauteng Number 1 seed, will make it into this championships the good Samaritans came into her rescue making the tour possible.
Malinga will be heading to Kallang, Singapore on Monday, to continue representing SA schools in the ONCOCARE Singapore Junior Squash Open 2019, starting on Tuesday till 15 of December. Acknowledging that the game is intense at the international level, Malinga remains confident.
The Best Junior Squash girl indicated that she is managing without her personal coach Musa Malinga as she had enough time to prepare back home.
She is however not entirely alone with the supervision of Vanessa Christensen who was appointed by SA Schools Squash to manage the rest of the South African team. – Report by Sinovuyo Ndudane
