You were the national champion in 1973, and the first to be in Malaysia. When did you stop playing? What made you do so?

YAM Tunku : I stopped playing squash in the mid-80s. I can’t remember exactly when, but the reason was that I was too busy, and had some injuries; ankle and knee problems. I had a hip operation last year, which is probably due to the wear and tear I got on the squash courts. And I was getting a little bit overweight, so I thought it was probably better for me to not continue.

I heard about your passion for cricket. What about the sport fascinates you?

YAM Tunku : Which one? Cricket? Cricket, it’s almost a philosophy. That’s what I like about cricket…so many dimensions in the game. It’s not only a team sport, but also an individual sport. You can be any size, any shape, any weight to play cricket. It’s a game of pure skill, and that’s one of the attractions of the game, cricket.

So, basically in cricket…size doesn’t matter!

YAM Tunku : Size doesn’t matter, no. Some of the best players in history have been small people. Sir Don Bradman, he was very small. The current no.1 batsman in the world, Sachin Tendulkar from India, he’s very short. You have the phenomenon in 1995, when Sri Lanka became the world champion. A lot of those people in the team are smaller than the Malaysians! So, it’s a bit like squash. Size is not important, it’s the skill that is important, and of course, squash is the added fitness and the mental side of things that are also important. Look at our two former world junior champions, Nicol David and Ong Beng Hee, they’re not big people. The current world champion, Peter Nicol, he’s not very big either. So, squash in that sense is similar. Anyone can play, and in fact if you’re too big, it can be difficult for you because of the turnings and those other aspects.

What are your views of Malaysian Squash; past, present and future?

YAM Tunku : The past was very much pioneering base. Squash is relatively young in this country. The national association was formed in 1972. Before then, squash enthusiasm was in the clubs. One of the reasons why a group of us got together and decided to form the national association was to try and move the game forward. So, the early years in squash were very much to do with the growth and development of the game. There were 20 squash courts in 1972, by 1980 there were already 400 squash courts in the country. The growth was incredible! I don’t know how many there are now, but it moved pass 700 and probably now closer to 1,000. We brought in our first national coach, Chris Clark in the early 80s, and established the junior development program. We realized that we really needed to get the juniors playing if we were going to get anywhere. We established leagues, circuits, and a lot of competitions…both the senior and junior level. Then, squash sort of built up. Presently, we have excelled at the junior level, having created two world junior champions, but now the challenge is very much on where we go from here. At the senior level, we are still unable to get into those top 3 or 4 countries because the depth is still not there. We have a good no.1 in the men’s, and now a good no.2 with Azlan, but in order to carry that forward into good international results, we need good no.3, 4, 5 and 6. So, the future for Malaysian squash is to continue at the grass roots, and ensure that the junior program continues. What we need to do is have a much tougher league for the national players, where they are playing not only good players from Malaysia but also foreigners. So, we either get a system or a program, where foreigners continually play the game in this country just like the squash leagues in England, or our top players have really got to go and train overseas, like Beng Hee, Nicol and Azlan are, spending more time overseas in the international competitions. We also need more professionals in the game, and I think we should see the results in the future. But that’s obviously easier said than done because overseas, funding comes into it. There’s not a lot of money in professional squash, but a lot of commitment, and certainly a lot of dedication.

Squash development in Malaysia is very much club based due to the lack of facilities in schools. We would like to request assistance from the Olympic Council of Malaysia to propose constructions of squash courts in new schools to the Ministry of Education. Your comment please?

YAM Tunku : There’s no point in building squash courts in schools, unless the Ministry of Education are committed in developing the game in those schools. Most schools have football pitches, but the football pitches aren’t being used for football. So, it would actually be a waste of money if that were to happen, schools would have the courts and not really utilize it. In Australia, it is the courts in clubs that are being utilized for junior development. Actually, courts are not needed in schools. What you need is to have clubs being available to keen school children to be able to play squash. For instance, schools in an area like Subang Jaya want to play in a league. You can have the school league based in a club like Lake View. So, with courts available to schools, they can use it for school activities. That’s the model they should be working on, utilizing the existing courts around the country, and then building on to a program for schools. We’ll obviously assist SRAM to get courts in schools, but that will entail a big program for the schools as they have many sports to cater for as well. There are 43 sports under OCM. If we have to facilitate for every sport, that will sum up to billions and billions of dollars! SRAM has done well without school courts. They can continue to do well by ensuring squash activities are held by the schools. Schools should be encouraged to form squash clubs and squash teams, by organizing regular competitions or a league for whatever form or standard among other schools in that area, or the schools themselves can have an inter-school or inter house event, three or four times a week. Maybe on Saturday mornings, they can have other activities. The good thing about squash is that it’s played in a very short period of time. You don’t need the whole day to play squash. During school hours, the courts are empty because kids are in lessons. So, that’s not a particularly good utilization of those courts. The better thing is for those in the morning school session, book courts in the afternoon at the center, and the afternoon session book courts in the morning. So, I think a school’s program is important, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you must have courts in schools.

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