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Monday April 6, 2009

Badminton: Ramdan, Zulfadli get nod to join national training

PETALING JAYA: Young singles shuttlers Misbun Ramdan Misbun and Zulfadli Zulkifli have taken a big step towards their dream to represent Malaysia in the Asian Junior Cham­pionships, which will be held in India from July 12-19.

Ramdan and Zulfadli will be joining the Badminton Association of Malaysia’s (BAM) first phase of centralised training in Bukit Jalil today.

Four boys’ singles players will be selected and Ramdan, the second son of national singles coach Misbun Sidek, and Zulfadli, will be given two weeks to impress Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS) chief coach Sun Chenhua.

Both of them earned the call-up for selection trials for their consistent performances in the 100Plus National Junior Circuit this year. Ramdan and Zulfadli emerged as the Zone A Under-18 and Under-16 champions respectively in the last two legs in Kedah and Perak.

The BAM junior programme coordinator, Hau Kim Tho, said that letters had been sent out to the youngsters for them to join training from today until April 16.

“These players have showed promise and we decided to include them in our first phase of training for the Asian Junior meet.

“They are expected to go through training under Chenhua for at least five hours daily,” he said.

Kim Tho added that more promising players would be invited for the next phase of centralised training.

“This is only our first phase of training for the Asian Juniors. We are also keeping an eye on other talent and they will be invited for the next round of the selection process, which will be a month before the championships,” he said.

Currently, the players in contention for places in the squad for the Asian Juniors are those from the BJSS and they include back-to-back Dutch and German junior boys’ champion Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin, Mohd Syawal Mohd Ismail, Lim Yu Sheng, Loh Wei Sheng, Jonathan Lee, Wing Kin Yik and Tew Gee Chong.

Iskandar and Syawal have produced good performances in international tournaments and they can be counted on for the team to India.

The next few tournaments involving the junior shuttlers are the national circuit’s Sabah and Sarawak Zone in Kota Kinabalu from April 17-19, Division Two of the Pahang Open from May 26-29 and the National Junior Circuit Grand Finals from June 10-14 in Seremban.

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