Hendrawan assigned to ‘coach’ Chong Wei

National badminton singles coaches Hendrawan (left) and Tey Seu Bock at training in Bukit Kiara on Tuesday.

KUALA LUMPUR: Former world champion Hendrawan is the man who can inspire badminton ace Lee Chong Wei to greater heights.

That’s the opinion of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) technical director Morten Frost.

The Dane is set to reveal his plans for the three-man singles coaching team – Hendrawan, Tey Seu Bock and He Guo Quan – at a press conference on Monday.

His plans will see the 42-year-old Indonesian, who was previously the back-up coach, being given a bigger role in mentoring Chong Wei – should the shuttler be cleared of his doping charge.

Chong Wei is waiting for a decision from the three-member Badminton World Federation panel regarding his doping offence. He tested positive for banned substance dexamethasone during the World Championships in Copenhagen last August,

“I will disclose more details next Monday ... I’ve made the decision (on assigning Hendrawan to handle Chong Wei),” said Morten on Tuesday.

“It’s time to do a little bit of changes to see whether other inputs, other people, other ways of thinking can inspire Chong Wei for the last two major tournaments, which hopefully will be the World Championships (in Jakarta from Aug10-16) and the Olympics in 2016.”

Chong Wei has been training under Seu Bock since 2010, with assistance from former singles chief coach Rashid Sidek and Hendrawan.

Morten, however, hopes that no one will jump to any conclusions over the switching of coaches.

Asked if Seu Bock will be handed a new role, the Dane explained: “No, no ... please don’t read too much into this.

“The whole thing is that I have three singles coaches and I don’t want them to be split into groups and not work together.

“That makes no sense. So when I said Hendrawan is handling Chong Wei, it doesn’t mean Hendrawan is on Chong Wei’s court 110%.

“It’s just that the three coaches will have a group of players under their care when it comes to coaching at tournaments, players’ welfare, rehab programme, gym programme.

“They will just be responsible for the players assigned under them on those matters. But when it comes to actual training, you will not have one group here and one group over there.

“It’s all about knowledge sharing.”