PETALING JAYA: The mental and physical exhaustion after winning the men’s singles bronze at the Paris Olympics and the subsequent celebration would have taken its toll on Lee Zii Jia, who possibly made the right decision to skip the Hong Kong Open next week.
Zii Jia competed in the Japan Open, the post Olympic super 750 event last month, but lost to eventual champion Alex Lanier of France in the first round.
That result was an indication that the independent shuttler didn’t have sufficient time to prepare for the tournament.
World No. 4 Zii Jia skipped the just concluded Korean Open where the Badminton Association of Malaysia’s (BAM) Leong Jun Hao was the only Malaysian singles shuttler in the draw.
The Hong Kong Open marks the first tournament where the remaining top five shuttlers, led by Denmark’s two-time Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen, will be competing.
Axelsen, Jonatan Christie of Indonesia (No. 3) and China shuttler Li Shifeng (No. 5) will be battling for the super 500 title.
World No. 1 Shi Yuqi of China competed in the Korean Open last week but was dispatched off in the quarter-finals by Hong Kong’s Lee Cheuk Yiu.
However, Hong Kong will serve as a warm-up before the top players head to Changzhou to play in the super 1000 China Open from Sept 17-22 where Zii Jia has also entered.
Meanwhile, Jun Hao has a fighting chance to progress in Hong Kong after losing in the first round of the Korean Open to Takuma Obayashi of Japan.
Jun Hao plays a qualifier in the first round and is likely to meet former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore in the second.
Kean Yew, however, has to negotiate a difficult first-round clash against Cheuk Yiu before meeting the Jun Haoin the last 16.
