Picture of frustration: Siti Norshuhaini Azman reacting after losing a point to Thailand’s Busanan Ongbamrungphan in the third singles of their Uber Cup Finals group match.
CHENGDU: Be patient with shuttler Siti Nurshuhaini Azman.
The youngster received brickbats for her poor showing and lack of fighting spirit in her match against Thailand’s world No. 20 Busanan Ongbam-rungphan in the Uber Cup Finals.
The 19-year-old went down 5-21, 8-21 in just 27 minutes to Busanan in Malaysia’s 0-5 defeat in the team’s second Group B match at the Hi Tech Zone Sports Center in Chengdu on Monday.
The girls failed to qualify for the quarter-finals after losing 1-4 to Taiwan earlier. They will play Australia in the final group match today.
Fans took to social media to criticise Nurshuhaini but women’s singles coach K. Yogendran said the player was starting from zero after a series of injuries, thus the low quality in her performance.
“2023 was a bad year for Nurshuhaini. She suffered many injuries,” said Yogendran.
“Whenever we wanted to send her for tournaments, she was injured.
“She recovered and won the National Under-21 Cham-pionships in February but this (Uber Cup) is her first international tournament of the year and she found it difficult to cope.
“The pace and pressure were different and she could not bring out her own game.
“She is starting from zero again and needs time to get up to speed,” added Yogendran.
Nurshuhaini dropped to No. 265 in the world rankings after her injury woes.
Her last international outing before the team meet was the Malaysian International Challenge last November.
Meanwhile, Yogendran admitted that Thailand were much stronger than Malaysia but has vowed to help his charges close the gap between the two countries.
In the first singles, national No. 2 and world No. 68 K. Letshanaa, who was selected instead of No. 1 Goh Jin Wei, lost out 17-21, 6-21 to world No. 16 Supanida Katethong while Wong Ling Ching went down 11-21, 15-21 to world No. 19 Pornpawee Chochuwong.
“If you see, Thailand players are all higher ranked than our players,” said Yogendran.
“Letshanaa and Ling Ching tried their best but there is still a big gap between them and the world’s top 20 players.
“They did better against Taiwan (in the first group match) but they could not recover well for the match against Thailand.
“They are not consistent yet. This is where they need to work on and I believe they can do better in two years’ time (in the next Uber Cup),” added Yogendran.
The standard of women players has dropped significantly and while Thailand, India and Taiwan continue to show progress, Malaysia struggle to even send a decent team for the Finals, an indication that we are at the lowest ebb.
