PETALING JAYA: Mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie are refusing to let their latest exclusion from the elite Road To Gold (RTG) programme affect their spirits after being dropped for the second time.
Instead, the husband-and-wife pair are determined to earn their way back when the RTG committee meets again in six months for its next review.
Soon Huat-Shevon were dropped from the elite programme after slipping to world No. 12. Under RTG criteria, they needed to remain at least in the world top eight in their second year in the programme.
For 2027 and 2028, athletes must be ranked in the world top four and qualify on merit for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 to strengthen Malaysia’s hopes of winning a first ever gold medal at the Games.
“At the moment, our top priority is to keep fighting. Whether we make it back into the programme or not, we want to leave that to our performances on court.
“We’ve been through this before. There were times when we wanted it too much and put too much pressure on ourselves, and that affected us emotionally and psychologically. We do not want that to happen again.
“This time, of course, we feel sad that we were not selected, but this is part of our journey. We have tried our best, and moving forward, we want to do even better than before, but with a different approach mentally,” said Shevon.
Soon Huat-Shevon were among the first batch of athletes selected for the RTG programme in April 2023 ahead of the Paris Olympics, but were dropped just six months later after slipping to world No. 11.
Meanwhile, Soon Huat-Shevon showed no signs of being affected by their RTG omission after cruising past Americans Chen Zhi Yi-Francesca Corbett 21-8, 21-16 in the first round Malaysian Masters yesterday.
The pair will be hoping to book their place in the quarter-finals when they take on Taiwan’s Wu Guan-xun-Lee Chia-hsin in the second round today, having already beaten them twice this year at the Malaysian Open and Indian Open in January.
“Every match is a new beginning, so we cannot underestimate our opponents.
“Just because we’ve beaten them twice before does not mean anything is guaranteed. There will definitely be ups and downs during the match, so we need to stay alert and be careful,” added Shevon.
