PENANG, the state that produced eight-time world champion Nicol David, may just come up with another world beater in the mould of the squash legend.
Since Nicol retired from professional squash last year, there has always been talk about looking for Malaysia’s next big star.
Now it seems that Penang, which is incidentally Nicol’s home state, is training up a young star, who they hope to be Nicol’s successor.
Meet 12-year-old Whitney Isabelle Wilson, who is originally from Kedah.
The pint-sized Whitney started showed her great potential two years ago at the British Junior Open. She reached the semi-finals of the girls’ Under-11, and repeated the feat last year.
Though still in primary school, Whitney made the bold decision six months ago to move to Penang in order to receive better coaching under Aaron Soyza.
Whitney certainly has a clear goal of what she hopes to achieve despite her tender age.
“It has been tough since making the switch to Penang as I had to adapt a lot but Aaron has really helped me as he inspires a lot of confidence,” said Whitney, who idolises Nicol as well.
“I think my game has improved a lot since and my goal is to go and win the British Juniors next year.”
Like Nicol, Whitney showed her mental strength when she fought back from two games down to beat an older and bigger Doyce Lee 9-11, 3-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-8 to win the girls’ Under-13 title in the recent National Junior Championships.
Aaron, who is also the long-time coach of national No 1 Low Wee Wern, is in awe of Whitney’s talent.
“I think she’s really a fantastic player. She’s probably the closest that I’ve seen who can come close to Nicol in terms of movement in the last 20 years of junior squash,” said Aaron, who is the brother-in-law of Nicol.
“I haven’t seen any girl move as smooth as she (Whitney) does. She also has that explosiveness in her game while being very resilient on court.
“I would say she has similar components as Nicol in terms of movement and energy level although they don’t necessarily play the same style.
“It’s probably still too early to say how far she’ll go but she definitely has the qualities to be a star in the future.
“What really startles me is her natural game instinct as her ability to switch from defence to offence is simply spot on.
“It’s a natural ability, and that is what keeps her ahead or at least on par with the bigger girls.”