BAM coaching director Wong Choon Hann said besides three senior players, they are also pushing new talented players like Ng Tze Yong, Aidil Sholeh Ali Sadikin and Lim Chong King, who were promoted to the senior squad early this year. — Bernama pic
KUALA LUMPUR, June 11 — Datuk Lee Chong Wei may have left his fans guessing but the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) is preparing younger players to step up to the plate if the national singles ace decides to retire soon.
BAM coaching director Wong Choon Hann said besides three senior players — Lee Zii Jia, Cheam Jun Wei and Soong Joo Ven — they are also pushing new talented players like Ng Tze Yong, Aidil Sholeh Ali Sadikin and Lim Chong King, who were promoted to the senior squad early this year.
Also listed in the next batch to be pushed to the fore are Leong Jun Hao, Muhammad Ziyad Md Tah, Tan Jia Wei and Lim Chi Wing.
Speculation over Chong Wei’s retirement has intensified after the three-time Olympic silver medallist was reported to have met BAM president Datuk Seri Mohamad Norza Zakaria and the coaches to discuss his future.
“Zii Jia has been steadily progressing. For Cheam and Soong, we have seen some improvement but it is still not enough as compared to what Zii Jia has achieved for the last six months to one year,” said Choong Hann.
“As for the younger players, they are good. They have been working hard on building up their shape, weight and to improve their strength. And they are fully adjusted into the senior pace and training intensity now. We are continuing to push them in terms of building up their strength,” he told reporters at the Badminton Academy of Malaysia in Bukit Kiara today.
Choong Hann said the coaching department was now adjusting competition planning to give these players more opportunities to play in tournaments in order to improve themselves.
But he admitted that it was quite tough for the players to enter the International Series (IS) or International Challenge (IC) without good a platform or rankings.
“We’ve found it’s hard to gain experience without being able to play. We are adjusting our competition planning so that they will be given a chance to play to improve themselves. They have trained well and earned the spot to be able to play in competition.
“We are looking for about six to eight competitions in this six-month period. Towards the end of the year, a lot of regional competitions are quite big tournaments. We are adjusting from our side to groom them,” he added.
Choong Hann said it was time for these shuttlers to start producing good results, or at least give higher-ranked players a run for their money.
“If they start entering finals, or perhaps winning the IC or IS, that should be our yardstick for them. They should start to show good results based on our coaching team’s observation in the next one and a half years,” he said. — Bernama
