Hard work ahead for Misbun and Rexy before world meet

PETALING JAYA: The All-England exposed Malaysia’s fragility in the men’s singles and doubles departments even though all had looked well and good from the outside.

World number one Lee Chong Wei, in reality, still ranks below China’s Olympic champion Lin Dan in standard.

And in the doubles, Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong and Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari-Mohd Zakry Abdul Latif are in a league of their own for inconsistency.

Beijing Olympic silver medallist Chong Wei needs to be more solid in his approach while the doubles players have to be steadier for Malaysia to have any hope to nail an elusive title in the World Championships in India from Aug 6-10.

In the just concluded All-England in Birmingham, Chong Wei found out yet again that Lin Dan is the superior player in a 19-21, 12-21 defeat in the final on Sunday. And it will be a matter of time before Lin Dan regains the world number one ranking.

National singles chief coach Misbun Sidek has a tough task to help Chong Wei come up to Lin Dan’s standard and it is doubtful that he can pull it off in the next few months.

And if the performances of Indonesian Taufik Hidayat and Dane Peter-Gade Christensen are anything to go by, these two players could also make life miserable for Chong Wei.

The lack of preparation and stamina probably saw Taufik letting Chong Wei off the hook in the semi-finals. But in the previous round, Taufik showed what he was capable of when he broke apart a solid Christensen with an impressive 21-17, 21-18 win.

Misbun said that he was determined to remove the doubts on Chong Wei’s ability ahead of the World Championships.

“Chong Wei is in his own class. It is not easy to be where Lin Dan is. The Chinese is a complete player. But it is not impossible for Chong Wei to be in the same league with Lin Dan,” he said.

“If Chong Wei can remain consistent in training and work on developing some specialities in his attacking game, I am confident that he will be a threat to Lin Dan.”

But Misbun’s problem is more than just developing Chong Wei into a more solid player.

“Lin Dan enjoys quality in sparring because there are so many Chinese youngsters coming to the fore,” he said.

“But here, the youngsters are gaining more from Chong Wei in the sparring sessions. There is no depth in the back-up squad but we are working on this area.”

Unlike Misbun, national doubles chief coach Rexy Mainaky have a big pool of players and many new talents are coming through. But Rexy has a set of different problems.

“We have depth in our doubles departments. But when one is playing well, the other does not. I have to look into ways to improve on the players’ consistency,” he lamented.

“This however, depends more on the players themselves on the day of the competition.”

Kien Keat-Boon Heong and Fairuzizuan-Zakry are still seen as the better bets to make an impact in the World Championships.

It will be a tall order for the top women’s pair of Chin Eei Hui-Wong Pei Tty in the company of a string of formidable Chinese pairs. In the All-England they were beaten in the second round by Pan Pan-Qing Tian.

Posted by Lucas Liau on 9:46 AM. Filed under News, Rexy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0