Golden touch: Wong Tat Meng holding South Korea’s An Se-young’s plaque after the latter’s win at the World Tour Finals in Bali in 2021.
KUALA LUMPUR: Wong Tat Meng has travelled the globe to produce champions and his latest responsibility is to fulfil the Olympic dreams of world No. 10 Lee Zii Jia.
Zii Jia has been struggling without a coach for the last eight months after parting ways with Indonesian Indra Wijaya and the appointment of Tat Meng, 55, was not entirely surprising.
Hints were there when Zii Jia had a two-week training stint in Hong Kong where Tat Meng currently trains as the men’s singles coach prior to the Asian Championships in Dubai last month.
The fact that Tat Meng did not travel to the Malaysian Masters with the Hong Kong team raised further suspicion that the former Thomas Cupper could be on his way back home.
And it was confirmed by Team LZJ yesterday.
“It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of Mr. Wong Tat Meng as the new coaching director for Team LZJ,” read the statement.
“Tat Meng brings a wealth of experience from his coaching stints with the Malaysian national team, Indonesia, Scotland, South Korea, and recently Hong Kong.
“He will begin working with Lee Zii Jia as soon as his relocation process from Hong Kong to Malaysia is sorted out.
“His task it to tailor a programme that will help Zii Jia achieve consistent performance, move up the world rankings, and be a medal contender for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Liew Daren, who will remain as Team LZJ’s coaching set-up, for steadying the ship in the absence of a senior figure.”
Tat Meng demonstrated his coaching ability when he guided Wong Mew Choo to win the 2007 China Open where the top Malaysian women’s shuttler defeated then two-time Olympic champion Zhang Ning and world No. 1 Xie Xingfang, all from China, to win her maiden Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super Series title.
Tat Meng’s first stint as the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) was from 2003 to 2011 while the second stint was in 2013-2016 where he had worked with Zii Jia, Soo Teck Zhi, Cheam June Wei and Soong Joo Ven.
He had also served as the women’s singles coach in Indonesia for two years in between the two stints at BAM.
An offer to guide Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour was also accepted by Tat Meng in 2017 while in 2019, he moved to South Korea to coach their women’s team and had guided current world No. 2 An Se-young during the early years of her career.
Tat Meng took up an offer as the Hong Kong men’s singles coach 11 months ago where he has been coaching Angus Ng Ka Long (world No. 14), Lee Cheuk Yiu (17), Chan Yin Chak (96) and Jason Gunawan (170).
Guiding Zii Jia is expected to be Tat Meng’s most significant role in his coaching career as the nation is looking forward to seeing the 25-year-old shuttler end an elusive wait for an Olympic gold in Paris 2024.
