ABU DHABI // Much like her sporting idols, Venus and Serena Williams, the 14-year-old Aslina Chua began a fledging tennis career hitting balls back and forth across a broken asphalt court.
Instead of the concrete jungle of Compton, California, however, Chua was born and raised in the city of Kuching in Borneo.
It was there, on the edge of the murky Sarawak River and among the island's lush greenery, that the teenager first picked up a racquet.
"It was such a long time ago," she said in a manner only a 14-year-old can when describing the year 2002. "Tennis wasn't like a foreign sport to me. It felt right; it just seemed ideal."
Chua practised intensely for four years in her quest to improve, but as is so often the case when dedicated training and developing dispositions collide, her love and enthusiasm for the sport began to wane. Her tennis career stalled before it had properly started; the racquet returned to the closet.
"I lost interest," she conceded. "I was overtraining, hitting balls for three hours a day, and I guess I just stopped enjoying it. I kind of got burnt out."
It would take two years before the fire for a hot forehand returned.
Chua's family had relocated to Abu Dhabi in late 2007 and a few months later she heard about a local tennis tournament that offered the winner the chance to train with some of the sport's most dominant talents, including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray.
The capital was preparing to host the inaugural Mubadala World Tennis Championships (in its previous incarnation it was entitled the Capitala World Tennis Championship) and, as a means of involving the city's residents as well as nurturing young talent, the Community Cup was established.
"The Community Cup brought me back into tennis," Chua said. "When I first arrived in Abu Dhabi, I didn't have much to do here. I had tried playing all these other sports - basketball, volleyball, swimming - but I was never as good at any of them as I was at tennis. So I started training again and liked it, then my coach told me about the Community Cup."
Encouraged by her parents, Chua entered the Under 12 tournament and reached the final. The following year she won at the Under 14 level. Last month, two months shy of her 15th birthday, she won Under 16. The fire is unmistakably back.
"Some of the girls were older and a lot stronger, but it wasn't really that different from Under 14," she said of her latest victory. "I basically feel that it is kind of like I've had a three-year head start, so it's great."
It is hardly surprising, then, that at this year's tournament, the Under 10 and Under 12 categories were oversubscribed. The 350 allocated positions were swiftly filled and 50 players were placed on stand-by. It is understood organisers are in discussions to expand the tournament from next year.
Chua's victory means she will attend one of four exclusive coaching clinics held by some of the game's top-ranked players next week. Although she does not yet know which of the six she will work with, Federer and Nadal will be joined by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robin Soderling, Tomas Berdych and Marcos Baghdatis at the three-day Mubadala WTC at Zayed Sports City.
"The Community Cup's a very solid tournament all round and is obviously developing young talent too," said Chua, who attended a clinic held by Nikolay Davydenko at last year's tournament.
"I actually think it means more than the national tournaments because we all want to win it so we can play with the pros. It was nice to meet [Davydenko] and realise he's not this big superstar, but rather just a friendly guy.
"He told me I should focus my mind on the ball rather than hitting it so hard, which has really helped my game a lot this past year."
Much like the Community Cup, playing in a variety of countries against players from different backgrounds provides an invaluable learning curve, and Chua plans to compete in more international tournaments, having already played in Indonesia, Qatar and Bahrain in the past 12 months.
"Tennis is still relatively new here and is still developing. Playing in other countries provides international experience against international competition, which can only help me improve," said Chua, who is ranked No 1,765 in the International Tennis Federation's junior world rankings and reached the semi-finals of the Asian Junior Championships in Doha earlier this month.
"My target for next year is to be ranked in the top 700 in the juniors," she said. "It is a big goal, but it's achievable."
It would mark an eventful journey.
gmeenaghan@thenational.ae
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Tips for used car buyers
- Choose cars with GCC specifications
- Get a service history for cars less than five years old
- Don’t go cheap on the inspection
- Check for oil leaks
- Do a Google search on the standard problems for your car model
- Do your due diligence. Get a transfer of ownership done at an official RTA centre
- Check the vehicle’s condition. You don’t want to buy a car that’s a good deal but ends up costing you Dh10,000 in repairs every month
- Validate warranty and service contracts with the relevant agency and and make sure they are valid when ownership is transferred
- If you are planning to sell the car soon, buy one with a good resale value. The two most popular cars in the UAE are black or white in colour and other colours are harder to sell
Tarek Kabrit, chief executive of Seez, and Imad Hammad, chief executive and co-founder of CarSwitch.com
The biog
Year of birth: 1988
Place of birth: Baghdad
Education: PhD student and co-researcher at Greifswald University, Germany
Hobbies: Ping Pong, swimming, reading
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
