Wasted opportunity: The BAM will come up with an amicable solution to compensate Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi for missing the Indonesian Masters.
PETALING JAYA: Independent pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi have missed out on the Indonesian Masters in Jakarta from Jan 24-29 due to a ‘clerical error’ of the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM).
BAM secretary general Datuk Kenny Goh admitted and regretted the error by one his staff members who had mistakenly entered Ong Yew Sin and Chee Yik Shen instead of Ee Yi for the men’s doubles competition.
All entries for the BWF tournaments must go through respective national associations and the mistake means Yew Sin-Ee Yi, the world No. 7, will lose sufficient ranking points with the Olympic qualifying period begins in May next year.
“It is a genuine ‘human error’ from our staff and we have notified Yew Sin-Ee Yi of the mistake. We regret the error and are sad that this has affected the pair,” said Kenny.
“I have already met the players and have promised to come up with an amicable solution. We are discussing with them on how to compensate them for missing the event.”
BWF will not entertain any late request to change entries.
The error only came to their attention after the list of main and qualifying draw list was finalised by the world body on Dec 16.
The deadline to report errors or to change entries was on Dec 14.
Yew Sin-Ee Yi have been showing fine progress on the world stage as they finished runners-up at the Australian Open last month and reached the semi-finals of the World Tour Finals in Bangkok a fortnight ago.
However, BAM did not make any errors for the Malaysian Open (Jan 10-15) and the India Open in New Delhi (Jan 17-22) where Yew Sin-Ee Yi’s entries are confirmed.
As for the Indonesian Masters, BAM’s Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin and independent pair Tan Wee Kiong-Tan Kian Meng will compete in the men’s doubles.
Men’s singles will have world No. 2 Lee Zii Jia and Ng Tze Yong in the main draw and independent shuttler Liew Daren in the qualifying draw while Goh Jin Wei will play in the women’s singles qualifiers.
Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah and independent pair Vivian Hoo-Lim Chiew Sien are in the women’s doubles main draw while independent combinations Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing and Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie are the only Malaysians in the mixed doubles.
