Sidelined: Soong Joo Ven’s knee injury flared up and he had to concede a walkover in the second round of the Vietnam Open yesterday.
PETALING JAYA: A physiotherapy session two weeks ago has put Soong Joo Ven in trouble as a knee injury after the session had forced him to concede a walkover in the second round of the Vietnam Open in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday.
Joo Ven, who received a bye in the first round, was playing Terry Hee of Singapore in the second round and conceded the match while trailing 0-3 in the first game.
“He is a part-time physiotherapist who used to help us at our club. Two weeks ago, he did a physio session on my left knee which he said was injured but it became worse after the session,” said Joo Ven.
“Due to the problem, I had to withdraw from the Indonesia International Challenge in Malang (Oct 11-16) but wanted to try and compete in the Vietnam Open.
“However, I was struggling to walk after a training session yesterday (Wednesday) and had to concede a walkover as I don’t want to aggravate the injury.
“It’s a relief the physiotherapist will not be returning to our club again and we need to be careful of such incidences in the future.”
Joo Ven said he will be undergoing a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to know the extent of the injury.
He has moved up six notches from No. 58 to No. 52 in the latest world rankings and was hoping to further improve his position by doing well at the ongoing Vietnam Open and tournaments in Indonesia.
However, he is still hopeful of competing in the Indonesia Masters, a super 100 event, in Malang from Oct 18-23 if the knee injury is not serious.
Joo Ven’s target this year is to break into the top 30 so that he can avoid playing in the qualifying round of the super 500 tournaments and make the cut for tournaments in the super 700 and above.
The All-England, Malaysian, Indonesia, Denmark, Korea and Japan Opens are some of the events that are ranked between super 700 and super 1000 on the Badminton World Federation’s world tour.
