Newly-appointed national doubles head coach Cheah Soon Kit will be pooling the resources for the men’s doubles where now there will no longer be separate training between the elite and also the back-up squad.
Following the drop in performance for the elite shuttlers – world No. 4 Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong – and back-up pair Goh Sze Wei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani, it has prodded Soon Kit to change his strategy.
Sze Wei-Nur Izzuddin’s performance has been going downhill since they making the final of the Malaysian Masters last January.
“They were off to a good start this year since they’ve made it to the Malaysian Masters finals. We saw potential in them and decided to send them to some big tournaments.
“However, they have been struggling to keep up with the stronger opponents and that is understandable. The experiences will build them up,” he said.
Previously, training for V Shem-Wee Kiong was handled by Jeremy Gan while the back-up pairs were trained by Soon Kit and Rosman Razak.
But following Soon Kit’s appointment as the new national doubles head coach last month, he has made the decision to pooling the training of both elite shuttlers and back-ups.
He explained that Jeremy Gan and Rosman will still be handling their respective groups but trainings will now be combined to benefit the juniors.
He also added that the weak performancesof world No.38 Sze Wei-Izzudinin the past tournaments were no surprise to him as they were new and much more inexperienced.
The former national champions lost in all the tournaments in early rounds of the Asian Mixed Team Championships and Asian Badminton Championships in China this year, as well as in the four SuperSeries tournaments in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia and one Grand Prix Gold at the Thailand Open.
Soon Kit also added that he did not accompany the players to tournaments before this but he will start doing so. He also encourages the other coaches to do the same.
Sze Wei-Izuddin will be accompanied by world No. 23 Ong Yew Sin-TeoEe Yi, who reached the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in Sydney last month to the SEA Games next month.
Malaysia’s last SEA Games men’s doubles gold was won by Lee Wan Wah-Choong Tan Fook in Vietnam in 2003. – BY DESLYN YOON
