A star is born as youngster Chan Sin-yuk lifts her first professional title at Chairman Cup
- The 18-year-old shows her potential by beating senior players on her way to winning the home tournament
- Yip Tsz-fung takes the men’s title after exacting revenge over Lau Tsz-kwan in the final
A star was born at Hong Kong Squash Centre on Saturday when youngster Chan Sin-yuk lifted her first professional title in her first final – giving a glimpse of the shape of the sport to come among local contenders.
The 18-year-old sixth seed was crowned the 2021 Chairman Cup women’s champion after beating her seniors, including fifth seed Vanessa Chu in the final with a 11-6, 13-11, 11-9 victory.
In the men’s final, top seed Yip Tsz-fung gained sweet revenge over Lau Tsz-kwan, the fourth seed, for the title, notching a 3-1 (11-5, 9-11, 11-8, 11-6) win after losing to the same player in the semi-finals of last month’s Chairman Cup, which was the 2020 edition of the competition.
“I have never played in the final of a professional tournament and am so happy that I have won it at my first go,” said the youngster, who only became a full-time athlete in October last year. “I was a bit nervous the night before and I could not sleep well but fortunately it did not affect me too much.
“Vanessa is a very fast player but I was able to cope with her speed and make it all the way to winning my first title.”
Chan, who has an excellent record in junior events, now looks forward to her senior career, with next year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou, China her next big target.
“The Hong Kong women’s team are the defending champions in Hangzhou and it will be a big challenge if I can represent the team,” said Chan, who was the 2019 Asian junior champion (Under-17) and a silver medallist (Under-17) at the British Junior Open the same year. She was also part of the Hong Kong junior team that claimed bronze at the World Junior Championships.
On her way to winning her maiden title, Chan defeated fourth seed Lee Ka-yi and second seed Ho Tze-lok before reaching the final. Both Lee and Ho were members of the victorious 2018 Asian Games gold medal winning team alongside retired stars Annie Au Wing-chi and Joey Chan Ho-ling.
“The women’s team has become very competitive with many players trying to win places on the team and hopefully I can seriously challenge to become a member of the team ,” she said.
Rebecca Chiu Wing-ying, the women’s team coach, said Chan had made a marked improvement after turning full-time, with her speed and physical ability progressing out of sight.
“She has strong potential but of course she is still very young and needs more international exposure to become a mature player,” said Chiu. “She will be furthering her studies in the United States this summer and we will have to find a way for her to keep training.”
Men’s champion Yip said it had been a tough period under the pandemic with only training and no competitions until now.
“We only played our first tournament last month at the previous Chairman Cup since the pandemic,” said the champion. “We are not sure whether we can travel overseas again for other major events. All we can do at the moment is to get ourselves prepared before the world tour returns to normal.”
