Zoe joins list of players to quit national squash team

PETALING JAYA: Another player – Zoe Foo – has called it quits from the Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM).

The 18-year-old tendered her resignation two days after returning home with a silver medal from the girls’ team event at the World Junior Championships in Tauranga, New Zealand.

She is the third player – after Teh Min Jie and Marcus Sim – to leave the national team for further studies.

Zoe, who was also part of the victorious Asian Junior Team Championships squad in Feb-ruary, will head to the United States to take up a scholarship to study and play college squash at the Georgetown University, Washington.

But the main reason Zoe has decided to cut ties with SRAM is because of their lack of support and trust in her.

“Like many aspiring juniors around the world, I was offered many opportunities to study and play college squash in the United States,” admitted Zoe.

“But I never took up the offers earlier because playing squash professionally was something that I really wanted to do as a career.

“Along the way, however, I realised that I was never given the full backing to realise my dreams.

“I was never given that much support, yet I was expected to produce good results.

“I was also being compared to the younger players too many times. I proved them wrong many times but there was still a lack of trust in me.

“I felt that I was always being overlooked when it comes to choosing players for a tournament.”

Zoe was referring to the way she was overlooked for the South-East Asian Squash Cham-pionships in February and being assigned a bit-part role for the Aug 19-30 SEA Games, where she was supposed to compete in the women’s team event only.

Zoe, who will turn 19 next month, has no regrets over her decision to quit the national team.

“I’m happy to be moving on. But I’ll certainly miss being part of the extraordinary team that finished second at the world juniors,” said Zoe, who will leave for Washington on Aug 21.

SRAM deputy president and SEA Games team manager Nik Razeen Daud confirmed that Nazihah Hanis will replace Zoe at the SEA Games.

“She (Zoe) was important to the team as the No. 3 and we’re sad to see her go. But we will not stand in the way of our players if there are better opportunities out there,” said Nik Razeen.