Do those at the top of Brunei tennis have the game's best backstories?
There are not many tennis administrators who are also a military helicopter pilot, lead guitarist in a metal band and build race car engines, all after being taught to play the game by a musician with links to Australian pop duo Savage Garden.
Meet Yusree Yusainey, the Secretary General of the Brunei Darussalam Tennis Association (BDTA), who together with President Zahiruddin Zahari, known as Didi, is responsible for overseeing and promoting tennis development within one of the world’s smallest nations.
The pair have lofty ambitions for a sport which they care deeply about and have hatched a plan to establish Brunei as a principal tennis-playing nation of Southeast Asia before turning their attentions towards flickering on the international stage. More about this later.
For now, it is worth dwelling on the backstories of those charged with raising the bar within Bruneian tennis. After all, Yusree’s day job – he and Didi operate at the BDTA on a voluntary basis – has seen him enjoy a storied military career during which he has piloted helicopters, mainly Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm Bo 105s, in the Royal Brunei Air Force.
