SA Junior champ Awande Malinga aspires for more girls to squash

Malinga was crowned for the second time at the Growthpoint SA Junior National Squash Championships in Cape Town last month. She believes her hard work has finally paid off.

"Just seeing a young girl like me win the tournament helps other young girls also work hard and get to a stage where they actually play squash professionally or even want to play squash competitively. So, this victory means a lot to me, my family, and my friends. This is just an amazing feeling," she told SABC Sport.

Malinga who is bowing out of junior ranks into seniors, together with her school, Midstream College High School, also clinched the 2023 SA Nationals Top Schools Squash Championship. She says losing in the final last year is what pushed them to work harder.

"These tournaments were back to back, so the one week I was in Pietermaritzburg, my birthplace, where I actually went to go play SA top schools. We lost last year just by a small margin  - literary by set - which was so disheartening for the whole team as well, because we worked so hard to get to that point. 

"And it was the last title that I had never won in my SA Junior career, so to come back this year and take it with my school and to be the only school in Gauteng to win such a huge title - the SA National Top Schools Champions was just amazing.”

The eighth consecutive NJSA Closed Champion who is coached by her father, Celumusa, says she has never dreamt that her career would reach such great heights.

"It's difficult to chose which highlight throughout my junior career, but I think you always have to get back to where you started. So when my dad first started coaching me and my brother I think that is one moment where I said:

'Ok, this is a chance that I have to play this unknown game in South Africa and to just enjoy it.' I didn't think that I would have so many goals setup for myself to come and win or even participate in all these tournaments which is probably a 100 in my junior years."