Keeping up with the Korean

Dominant force: An Se-young won a sixth title for the year at the Japan Open on Sunday.

PETALING JAYA: South Korean shuttler An Se-young is unstoppable right now.

And that makes the women’s singles interesting and competitive but also adds immense pressure on all others in the fray to narrow the gap quickly, says Malaysia’s former All-England men’s singles champion Mohd Hafiz Hashim.

Hafiz, who is now coaching India’s P.V. Sindhu, knows he has a huge task on his hands to turn the 2019 world champion into a worthy opponent once again in the field.

“I’m really happy to be Sindhu’s coach but at the same time, there is some pressure too,” said Hafiz.

Hafiz started coaching Sindhu full-time two weeks before the 28-year-old headed to the Canada Open and US Open and did well to reach the semi-finals and quarter-finals respectively.

In the last two back-to-back Opens in South Korea and Japan though, the world No. 17 crashed out in the first round and is now regrouping herself to find her footing in the on-going Australian Open.

“My personal goal for Sindhu is to help her win the gold at the next Olympic Games but we are also focused to show improvement in every World Tour tournament,” he said.

“I believe Sindhu still has a chance to win because she is determined and has shown it after making a comeback from her injury (foot).

“The women’s singles competition has become tougher ... we can see that Se-young is in a dominant form now.

“She seems to be brilliant in any situation, shows good control and is very persistent – that’s why she keeps winning.

On Sunday, the 21-year-old won her sixth title of the year after emerging champion at the Japan Open.

“The rest of the field will just have to catch up and I hope we can do better in the Australian Open.”

Hafiz, who was previously a coach with Badminton Association of Malaysia junior programme under Datuk Misbun Sidek, is one of the many Malaysian coaches plying their trade abroad.

Just last month, Wong Choong Hann snapped up a job as the singles head coach with Hong Kong.

The others are Goh Giap Chin (China); Vountus Indra Mawan (Australia); Jeremy Gan, Lee Wan Wah, Tan Kim Her (Japan); Choong Tan Fook (Hong Kong); Lim Pek Siah and Loh Wei Sheng; and Chin Eei Hui (New Zealand).

Wong Tat Meng, K. Yogendran and Salim Samion were in South Korea, Mauritius and Ukraine respectively before returning to Malaysia.