PETALING JAYA: Switching roles can be daunting for many but former international K. Yogendran (pic) is taking things in his stride.
Yogendran took over the reins to begin his new journey as a national women’s singles coach after swapping places with James Chua.
James will join Hendrawan and Datuk Tey Seu Bock in the men’s singles department starting tomorrow.
Yogendran, who joined the Badminton Association of Malaysia in November 2021, is comfortable in his new role.
“For me, it is not something new to coach the women’s team. I was the chief coach in Mauritius for four years and I was assigned to coach the whole team, both men’s and women’s,” said Yogendran.
“I also ran an academy – Petaling Jaya New Vision Badminton Academy (NVBA) – for more than 10 years since 2008.
“It is nothing new for me and coaching girls is always a challenge but I don’t think that it’ll be an issue.
“Girls are more emotional compared to boys, so we need to know how to handle this part well.
“I believe that providing support, positive words and encouragement will help them to feel good and perform better.
“In terms of game plan and style, the boys can just jump and smash to finish the rally whereas girls cannot easily end the game because the rally is longer for them.
“As a result, we need to equip the players with more skill sets so they compete better and find opportunities to change the speed of the rallies, which is crucial.’’
It has been less than a month since the women’s singles shuttlers started training under Yogendran.
He lauded his charges for their hard work but believes that they need some time to adapt fully to his training regime.
“Actually, they are adapting to the training day by day, giving their best and trying hard to improve themselves,” said Yogendran.
“But we need some time for them to understand the concept and formula of training because it is very important for them to know why we are doing this and when to do it.
“We’re trying to do individual programmes because we have a small group and each of them face different issues, so we will come up with different types of programmes to improve their game.”
K. Letshanaa, Siti Nurshuhaini Azman, Wong Ling Ching and Oo Shan Zi are preparing for competition in the Maldives International Challenge at the Male Sports Complex in Male starting next Monday.
