PETALING JAYA: The Sudirman Cup has laid bare Malaysia’s lack of quality in the women’s singles again.
While countries like China, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand have strong options to call upon in the women’s singles, Malaysia continue to struggle in the event.
Maybe, it’s time for former top star Wong Mew Choo to make a special appearance at the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) to inspire the players, currently struggling and lacking a role model to look up to.
In the crucial group match against Japan on Thursday, world No. 43 Goh Jin Wei went up against world No. 8 Tomoka Miyazaki and lost in straight games.
Jin Wei, who has been soldiering on despite her health issues after undergoing colectomy surgery in 2019, is still Malaysia’s highest ranked women’s singles player.
The 25-year-old left the BAM in 2021 but none of the players in the national body have been able to overtake Jin Wei in the rankings since her departure.
World No. 52 K. Letshanaa, who was also selected for the Sudirman Cup, is the closest to the independent player.
The 21-year-old though showed how far she is from the world’s best players when she went down tamely to 2020 Tokyo Olympic champion Chen Yufei in Malaysia’s 0-3 defeat to China in the last eight.
Singles coaching director Kenneth Jonassen, who admitted that the gap between Malaysia and the top countries like China is still huge, has his hands full to turn the country’s fortunes around.
BAM appointed the experienced Jonassen in January and the Dane will need time to improve the likes of Letshanaa and world No. 92 Wong Ling Ching.
Jonassen is currently on the lookout for a new women’s singles head coach after Indonesian Jeffer Rosobin left BAM in February, and former All-England champion Mohd Hafiz Hashim could be a good option.
But they must stick with a coach and give him or her ample time to work with the players.
Women’s singles coaches have changed often in BAM over the past few years with James Chua, K. Yogendran and Jeffer all not staying long in the position since 2022.
Of the three, only Yogendran is still in BAM and was moved to the men’s singles department last October.
The constant chopping and changing of coaches and training programmes is not helping the development of the players.
Jonassen has had some time to assess the players available to him and needs to get the right coach capable of improving them.
Coming up with a plan and sticking to it is important to raise the standards of Malaysia’s women’s singles.
Belief is also essential as Jonassen said when he took the job that being the first to achieve a breakthrough is no easy task but he wants to inspire the players and help them see that they can do better.
It is difficult though for Letshanaa and Ling Ching to reach a higher level when they have no one else to look up to in BAM and it is the same if not harder for the junior players.
While the youngsters in the doubles can be inspired by 2022 world champions Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik (men’s doubles), world No. 5 Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah (women’s doubles) and world No. 4 Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei (mixed doubles), who do the young women’s singles players try to emulate?
Sadly, there are none in BAM currently.
Perhaps, BAM should arrange for former player Mew Choo, who reached a career high No. 7 in the world in 2008, to meet the current crop once and give them a few words of inspiration.
There’s no harm in trying as BAM need to do something drastic to turn the tide or Malaysia face the prospect of continuing to lag behind the top nations in women’s singles.
