Despite financial constraint, the Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM) will stage 28 international and local tournaments this year.
The international highlights will be the Fed Cup Group Two (Asia and Oceania), Junior Davis Cup (March 30-April 4) and Junior Fed Cup (April 5-10).
The TennisMalaysia national circuit will feature four legs, culminating in the Masters tournament in December.
The first leg of the national circuit will be at National Tennis Centre on Feb 19-23 followed by the second leg on June 23-27. Both tournaments offer a total prize money of RM58,000 each.
Two other legs of the circuit will be the Kuala Lumpur Open (Sept 16-20) and Raintree Open (Oct 14-18). The prize money is yet to be finalised.
LTAM vice president Datuk Salahuddin Ahmad Kamal said the various tournaments will give the young national players the opportunity to compete with international players and improve their world rankings.
“Despite financial constraint, we have managed to increase the number of tournaments. The junior Davis and Fed Cups are new additions to our calendar,” said Salahuddin.
“The region’s top players from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand will participate in the KL Open and other national circuit events while the best juniors in Asia will be competing in the seven ATF junior events.
“This year will see a bigger number of foreign players competing and this will help us gauge the level of our players.
“It is costly to send our juniors abroad for tournaments and the ATF Junior legs will help them gain rankings.”
This year’s TennisMalaysia Junior Tour will have six legs: KL (Jan 16-19), Pahang (Feb 6-9), Negri Sembilan (Apr 2-5), Johor (June 17-20), Sabah (Aug 20-23) and Perak (Nov 5-8).
Top national players, including Christian Didier Chin, Shamirul Shahril, Hayden Khoo, Suhana Sofia, Elysia Wan Rahman, Elsa Wan Rahman and Mitsuki Leong are expected to compete in the tournaments.