18 hours ago
Mitsuki's racquet switch begins to pay dividends
KUALA LUMPUR: Tennis player Mitsuki Leong is now back to his best, says his father-cum-coach Jeff Leong.
Jeff said Mitsuki, who claimed his maiden ITF doubles title (M15) in Kazakhstan on Saturday (Aug 9), had taken time to adjust to some equipment changes he made at the start of the year.
"We decided to change racquet model at the start of the year because we felt it would benefit his game in the long run," said Jeff when contacted yesterday.
"He likes the new racquet a lot and it gives his game a boost in certain areas. It has, however, taken him a little time to fully adapt but he is very comfortable with it now.
"We came back to Malaysia for a couple of weeks last month to work on his game and he is now playing very well.
"He won the doubles and also reached the singles quarterfinals in Astana but was unlucky to face the second seed there.
"He will next compete in a few challengers in Greece (starting this week) and hopefully he can make good progress.
"Challengers are much tougher, you even get top-200 and top-300 players competing in the lowest tier Challenger 50 events so nothing is guaranteed."
Mitsuki partnered Czech player Dominik Palan in Astana. It was the first time a Malaysian player had won an ITF doubles title since Christian Didier Chin, partnering Ng Hao Yuan (Singapore), won in Singapore (M15) in 2019.
The winner of Challenger 50 events bags 50 ATP points. Challengers can offer as high as 175 points.
Mitsuki, who recently turned 21, achieved a career-high ATP ranking of 605 in late June but has since dropped to 640. It is nevertheless the highest a Malaysian player has been ranked in decades.
