PETALING JAYA: The challenge is going to get doubly hard for promising women’s doubles shuttlers Dania Sofea Zaidi-Low Zi Yu when they begin a long stretch of competitions against seniors.
The reigning national girls’ Under-18 champions will be tested when they play together for the first time in back-to-back international tournaments – the Slovak Open which starts on Wednesday, Slovanian Open (May 14-18) and Austrian Open (May 22-25).
Dania, 17 and Zi Yu, 14 have been making waves together, notably capturing silver in the World Junior Championships last October and their first international title in the Dutch Junior Open in February.
Junior women’s doubles coach Amelia Alicia Anscelly said Dania-Zi Yu still have room for improvements and the three events will be used to gauge their consistency and fitness.
“Dania-Zi Yu need to be consistent and maintain their fitness to play back-to-back tournaments,” said Amelia.
“After the Dutch outing, their fitness was a bit low and mentally they were tired as well.
“We are now trying to help them prepare for back-to-back competitions in Europe and hopefully we can see some changes in them.
“They also need to be prepared to play in senior tourneys where the level will be higher.”
The tournaments in Europe will also serve as preparation for Dania-Zi Yu ahead of the Asian Junior Championships from July 18-27 in Solo, Indonesia.
The pair will be Malaysia’s best bet to win gold in the competition but Amelia does not want to put too much pressure on her charges.
“They won the silver in the last world junior meet, of course there are increased expectations on them,” said Amelia.
“But I don’t want to put too much pressure on them and push them too fast too soon.
“We will continue sending them for senior events, so that they will ready to make the step up when they move up to the senior team. We also want to help them improve their rankings,” added Amelia.
Dania will also compete in Europe with Datu Anif Isaac in the mixed doubles.
