PETALING JAYA: Men’s singles shuttler Lee Zii Jia will have his work cut out for him after the Thomas Cup Finals as coach Liew Daren is aiming to get his ranking back up.
World No. 83 Zii Jia is set to compete at the Thomas Cup in Horsens, Denmark, from April 24-May 3 as Malaysia’s fourth men’s singles player, but he will need to improve his rankings before he is back participating in high-level World Tour tournaments after that.
Daren said due to Zii Jia’s low ranking, he would be unable to compete at the Super 500 Malaysian Masters next month in Bukit Jalil from May 19-24.
“There were plans for him (Zii Jia) to compete, but he didn’t qualify for the Malaysian Masters.
“His ranking is still quite far off,” said Daren.
“We will have to see which tournaments he can get into, and we’ll head for those.
“It’s concerning because his ranking at 80-something makes it hard to get into Super 500 or even Super 300 events.
“So we need to improve and reach the top 30 at least to qualify for better tournaments. That’s important.”
Zii Jia managed to play on home ground this year at the Super 1000 Malaysian Open in January, thanks to his protected ranking at the time.
Daren added that he hopes the outing at the Thomas Cup will help boost Zii Jia’s morale after a long run of poor results due to injury.
“As a former player, I understand that if losses keep happening and add injury to that, it’s easy to be down.”
