Soniia eyes comeback at World C’ships after long lay-off

PETALING JAYA: From one major event to another after a long time.

National women’s singles shuttler Soniia Cheah (pic) is making a comeback in the World Championships from Aug 21-28 in Tokyo after last playing for the country at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

After an injury-enforced absence, the 28-year-old, who is still the country’s top-ranked women’s singles player at No. 39, is relishing the prospect of playing again but wants to get back into top form slowly.

And to give herself maximum time to be 100%, Sonia has chosen not to take part in any other tournaments before the world meet.

“I need time to recover and get back in shape. So, I will not be participating in other tournaments before the World Championships,” said Soniia.

She had been troubled by a persistent Achilles tendon injury for a long time in her career before the Olympics but after that stint in Tokyo, she had to take a break again due to troublesome bone spurs in her ankle.

Soniia’s last match was against Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon in the group stage of the Olympics where the Malaysian went down fighting 21-19, 18-21, 10-21 in 62 minutes.

She has taken part in the world meet twice before in 2018 and 2019 and lost in the second round both times to Japan’s Sayaka Sato and Canada’s Michelle Li respectively.

Soniia had an opportunity to play in the world meet last year but turned it down.

Now, the 2017 Kuala Lumpur SEA Games silver medal winner will be looking to do better in her third attempt.