KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 2 — National badminton legend Datuk Seri Jalani Sidek believes national professional men’s singles champion Lee Zii Jia will bounce back from his current decline in performance.
Only time will tell if Lee will ‘roar’ again on the court, considering the 17th-ranked player in the world has a good style of play.
He said the former All England 2021 champion’s decision to hire Wong Tat Meng as his coach in May, after parting ways with his former coach Indra Wijaya from Indonesia last November, is part of the process to return to the peak of success.
“This is part of the process because if he (Lee) wants to be champion, he knows what he wants, give him time,” Jalani said when met recently.
Lee once described Wong as a local coach with the necessary characteristics to help him realise his dream of chasing Olympic gold for the country at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Wong was one of the key figures who led the South Korean women’s squad to the 2022 Uber Cup final at the Impact Arena in Bangkok last year.
South Korea beat defending champions China 3 – 2, to lift the Uber Cup for the second time in their history after winning it in 2010.
Lee’s performance was seen as going downhill when he was eliminated in the first round for the fourth consecutive time, including losing to the defending champion from Japan Kenta Nishimoto 22 – 20, 17 – 21, 19 – 21, at the 2023 Japan Open last week.
Jalani, distressed at the fate of his brother Datuk Misbun Sidek whose contract was terminated as the Director of Youth Singles Coaching at Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) recently, said development takes quite a long time before being able to produce successful players.
Although the current junior squad has a lot of players, he found their quality of play is still lacking.
“Quantity is high, but quality is low…if we have five players, but only one is the best, help that player as best as possible to win. So, development is important because it takes a long time,” Jalani said.
— Bernama
