PETALING JAYA: National men’s singles coach K. Yogendran said Malaysia will field in-form players against Hong Kong in their opening Group B tie at the Asia Mixed Team Championships in Qingdao, China, today.
Yogendran said the coaching team have agreed to field players based on their current form and suitability rather than relying on their world rankings.
“This is a team event, so we need to strategise. We will field players based on their current form and who we believe are best suited to face Hong Kong,” he said in a video shared by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM).Yogendran said they will not experiment with pairings against Hong Kong.“We will not try scratch pairings; we will field our regular pairs. Based on their current form, our doubles pairs are all in top condition.
“The wind speed is a bit slow here, they have told us to use the tournament shuttles during the test court but we will have to see during the match on how the conditions are,” he said.
Malaysia will be competing at the team event with the skills of Leong Jun Hao and Justin Hoh in the men’s singles, Man Wei-Chong-Tee Kai Wun, Yap Roy King-Wan Arif Wan Junaidi (men’s doubles), K. Letshanaa, Wong Ling Ching (women’s singles), Teoh Mei Xing-Go Pei Kee, Cheng Su Hui-Tan Zhing Yi (women’s doubles), Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie and Hoo Pang Ron-Cheng Su Yin (mixed doubles).
Malaysia, who have never progressed past the group stage since the tournament’s inception in 2017, will face Hong Kong today before taking on arch-rivals Indonesia tomorrow in their final group match. Only the top two teams from each group will advance to the quarter-finals.
Indonesia started their campaign strong after thrashing Hong Kong 5-0 yesterday, with world No. 20 men’s singles shuttler Angus Ng Ka Long falling to No. 43 Alwi Farhan.
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