Hendrawan, the national men’s singles head coach wants Lee Zii Jia to rise to the occasion and get stronger for the BWF World Tour Finals which will start tomorrow in Bangkok.
Hendrawan explained that the country’s No. 1 men singles player needs to focus more on tactic and strategy other than to get stronger mentally.
The two Thailand Open tournaments that took place in the last two weeks were clearly not in favour of Zii Jia and where he was struggling to find his form.
Zii Jia progressed to the quarterfinals of the Yonex Thailand Open only to lose to the second-seeded Chou Tien Chen from Chinese Taipei.
While for the Toyota Thailand Open, the 22-year-old was knocked out in the very first round after losing to India’s Sameer Verma.
“For the World Tour Finals, Zii Jia has to focus more on strategy and also look for ways to improve his confidence as at the last two tournaments, he seemed to have lost some of that edge,” said Hendrawan.
As such, Hendrawan is hopeful that for the last tournament in Bangkok this week, Zii Jia will fight for every available point so as to get his game back on track.
For the World Tour Finals, the Kedah lad has been placed in Group A against Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen, Chou Tien Chien from Chinese Taipei, and Indonesia’s Anthony Ginting.
In Group B are Anders Antonsen from Denmark, Wang Tzu Wei from Chinese Taipei, K. Srikanth from India and Hong Kong’s Angus Ng Ka Long.
In the meantime, in the men’s doubles, national professional pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yii are in Group A alongside Thailand Open doubles champion Lee Yang-Wang Chi Lin (Chinese Taipei) and two doubles from England – Ben Lane-Sean Vendy and Marcus Ellis- Chris Langridge.
Meanwhile, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik have been placed in Group B against Indonesian pair Mohd Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan, Vladmir Ivanov-Ivan Sozonov (Russia) and Choi Soi Gyu-Seo Sung Jae from South Korea.
The women’s doubles action will see two Malaysian pair in Vivian Hoo-Yap Cheng Wen and Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean cast in Group A alongside Greysia Polii-Apriani Rahayu (Indonesia) and Lee So Hee-Shin Seung Chan from South Korea.
Malaysia’s sole representative in the mixed doubles, Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie are in Group B with Mark Lamsfuss-Isebell Herttrich from Germany, Thom Giquel-Dephine Delrue (France) and Indonesian representatives Hafiz Faizal-Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.
Mixed doubles coach Paulus Firman has set a semifinal target for Soon Huat and Shevon Lai even though he realised that the path ahead will not be easy.
“For the past few days, I have been focusing on improving the communications between the two players and finding the best solution while on court as well as strengthening their overall defense,” said Paulus.
