KUALA LUMPUR – Youth singles coaching director Datuk Misbun Sidek will try to offer more balanced opportunities to his charges in the team event at the Asian Junior Badminton Championships in Yogyakarta, Indonesia from July 7 to 16.
Misbun said the lacklustre performance of the country’s young shuttlers at the 2022 BWF World Junior Championships in Santander, Spain, last October gave him useful experience especially when it came to the dependence on certain players.
“During the world junior, most of the players in the team event did not play singles event, but we used Justin Hoh (men’s singles) because we played against top countries and played many rounds. There were players who don’t play team event, and we were stuck there.
“This time we are preparing the players so that they can be ready and we want to balance the singles players so that they can play any battle (team event),” he said when met here recently.
Out of a total of six team event matches including three group events at the World Junior Championships, Justin played five times while women’s singles player Siti Nurshuhaini Azman played four times.
For the first time ever, no national player qualified for the quarter-finals of the singles event at the world junior championships, and the national team only finished ninth in the mixed team event.
This was the second time in a row that Malaysia returned empty-handed after the 2019 edition in Kazan, Russia.
Although the players are seen to be ready to take on the task in Indonesia, Misbun hopes that the national squad will not underestimate other challengers in Group C comprising India, Bangladesh and Hong Kong. – Bernama
