Wei Chong-Kai Wun’s inconsistency is something for Herry to fix


PETALING JAYA: One of new men’s doubles coach Herry Iman Pierngadi’s tasks will be to turn shuttlers Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun into a more consistent pair.

Wei Chong-Kai Wun have proven their abilities before but are still dogged by inconsistency, which has seen them struggle to break into the world’s top 10 so far.

The world No. 14 pair went down fighting 21-23, 21-19, 16-21 to home favourites and Asian Games champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty in the first round of the Indian Open at the KD Jadhav Indoor Stadium in New Delhi on Tuesday.

It was a frustrating defeat for Wei Chong-Kai Wun just after they did well to reach the semi-finals of the Malaysian Open.

The narrow loss repeated a pattern over the last two years where the duo have not managed to consistently beat the top pairs.

Wei Chong-Kai Wun toppled South Korea’s 2023 world champions Kang Min-hyuk-Seo Seung-jae twice last year but lost to the likes of Denmark’s world No. 1 Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, China’s world No. 3 Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang and Indonesia’s world No. 4 Fajar Alfian-Rian Ardianto.

The pair also extended their winless run against Satwiksairaj-Chirag to four matches after their defeat to them on their home turf.

Indonesian legend Herry, who is set to start work as the new men’s doubles head coach in the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) on Feb 1 replacing Tan Bin Shen, will need to use all his experience to help Wei Chong-Kai Wun become world beaters.

Wei Chong, whose best achievement to date is finishing runners-up with Kai Wun in the World Tour Super 1000 Indonesian Open last June, admitted that the duo still had a lot to learn as they bid to close the gap to the top pairs.

“We need to prepare well on our mentality for our upcoming tournaments. There’s still a lot for us to learn and we need to keep going,” said Wei Chong in a post-match interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).

“We played well (against Satwiksairaj-Chirag) but we still lost out on a few simple things.

“We are still happy to get to play against them as they are a top pair and it’s their home ground and we hope we can meet them again.”

On what made the difference in the match, Kai Wun said: “The difference was they kept the pressure on us until the end while we slowed down a bit (and it cost us).”

Wei Chong-Kai Wun will next turn their attention to the Indonesian Masters from Jan 21-26 in Jakarta where they will open their campaign against Thailand’s Peeratchai Sukphun-Pakkapon Teeraratsakul.

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