PETALING JAYA: Rising men's doubles pair Aaron Tai-Yap Roy King are hoping to carry their impressive momentum into the final two tournaments of the year as they chase a place in next January's Malaysian Open.
Aaron-Roy King have climbed to world No. 55 following an impressive run in Europe last month, but still need to improve their ranking to stand a chance of making the cut for the Malaysian Open.
Despite changes to the tournament format next year, the men's and women's doubles events will still feature only 32 pairs.
For Roy King, securing a place in the home tournament is their main target for the rest of the year, especially now that he and Aaron are set to remain together after national men's doubles head coach Herry Iman Pierngadi ended his experiment with different pairings.
"First of all, I want to thank coach Herry for putting his trust in me. As for our targets moving forward, I haven't really thought too far ahead.
"I've told Aaron that we should take things step by step. For the remainder of the year, our main aim is to improve our world ranking so that we can qualify for the Malaysia Open," said Roy King.
The 25-year-old is not getting carried away by their impressive start, however, and believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.
He sees the recent changes in the national men's doubles set-up as part of a learning process, admitting that he is still adapting to playing alongside Aaron.
"I'm still learning as his partner. Even when I played with Tee Kai Wun and Arif Junaidi previously, I was still learning step by step.
"It's not as though I'm already a steady player. Everything is part of the learning process, and that's how things have worked out," he added.
The reshuffle has certainly worked in Roy King's favour. He has not only found a permanent partner but also won two titles with different partners over the past three months.
He first captured the Korean Masters title with Tee Kai Wun in August before joining forces with Aaron to win the Arctic Open last month, giving their new partnership a perfect start.
Aaron-Roy King will have another opportunity to build on that success at next week's Japan Masters in Kumamoto, where they will face Japan's Kakeru Kumagai-Hiroki Nishi in the opening round.
They will then head to the Hong Kong Open the following week, where they will have to come through the qualifying rounds.
