PETALING JAYA: It’s not a year to crow about but there were still plenty of positives that can be taken from the Malaysian shuttlers’ overall showing.
National No. 1 men’s doubles pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik were the standout performers – frequently saving the country’s blushes namely by being the only Malaysians to win medals in the World Championships in Copenhagen in August and Hangzhou Asian Games in October.
The pair won bronze medals in both tournaments and also ended their long drought in World Tour events by memorably capturing the Denmark Open in Odense in October.
Aaron-Wooi Yik also finished runners-up in the Opens in India, Indonesia and China.
While the pair were undoubtedly the most consistent performers this year, another duo who caught the eye were Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei in the mixed doubles.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei won lots of plaudits for their rapid progress since being combined only a year ago.
Among the pair’s best achievements was capturing the Orleans Masters in April and Taiwan Open in June.
Tang Jie-Ee Wei also became the country’s No. 1, overtaking independent pairs Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie and Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing.
They ended the year as the world No. 9 and were nominated Most Improved Pair of the Year by the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
While national coaching director Rexy Mainaky was reasonably satisfied with the performance of the national team’s elite players, he was also pleased with some of the youngsters in the back-up squad.
Among the youngsters, men’s doubles pair Choong Hon Jian-Mohd Haikal Nazri, who were only paired up in August, proved their potential by bagging the back-to-back Syed Modi International and Indian Masters titles earlier this month.
The victories catapulted Hon Jian-Haikal from No. 97 to No. 52 in the world rankings.
“Overall, I will say that I’m 70% satisfied with our players’ performance this year,” said Rexy.
“Some of our back up players did well along with our elite players. Haikal and Hon Jian upset several higher ranked pairs to win the Syed Modi title.
“Hopefully, we can produce more champions next year.
“In the men’s singles, (Leong) Jun Hao did well to win the KL Masters and Justin (Hoh) performed well after returning from injury.
“But we will like to see these players and also the others step up more. We don’t want to depend too much on (Ng) Tze Yong,” added Rexy.
Rexy though wants the women’s singles and doubles to improve.
“We need to bring up more back-up pairs in the women’s doubles,” he said.
“In the women’s singles, we struggled overall but there are some positives from Wong (Ling Ching).
“She has been developing well under the guidance of coach K. Yogendran and her performances towards the end of the year were encouraging.”
