KUALA LUMPUR: Some of the back-up shuttlers are in danger of being booted out of the national badminton team.
The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) will be conducting an open selection trials at the Juara Stadium in Bukit Kiara from Jan 20-24 and all the states have been asked to send their best players to challenge the back-up shuttlers.
Talent search programme chief David Wee said the trials would be closely monitored by the national coaches.
“We are trying out this open selection trials for the first time. It is a transparent way of selecting the players for the national team and we hope that the best will get in. If a state player can beat the national back-up player, he or she will be invited to join the national team and the back-up player will be dropped,” said David.
“We have not finalised the details yet. The format of the trials will be revealed soon. Only the players identified by the states will attend the trials. The BAM will release the names of the back-up shuttlers for the trials. It will not involve all the back-up players but only those who are struggling. Some players in the national team have yet to show signs of progress and this will be a great platform for us to assess them,” he added.
Of all the events, the men’s singles will be the most interesting. The BAM are looking at adding more depth in the men’s singles and find potential ones to be groomed like world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei.
Currently, the men’s singles back-up players in the BAM are Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin, Goh Soon Huat, Loh Wei Sheng, Choong Yee Han, Tan Kian Meng, Goh Giap Chin, Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayub, Soong Joo Ven and Soo Teck Zhi.
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