KUALA LUMPUR, April 3 — The home challenge in the men’s singles event came to an abrupt end on the second day of the 2019 Malaysian Open badminton championships at the Axiata Arena in Bukit Jalil here today.
Malaysia’s hopes of seeing at least one of their representatives in the second round were crushed when up-and-coming shuttler Lee Zii Jia lost 17-21, 21-19, 15-21 to world No. 33 Suppanyu Avihingsanon of Thailand in the first round.
Earlier, national professional shuttler Chong Wei Feng suffered the same fate when he went down 12-21, 12-21 to Japan’s Kanta Tsuneyama in 35 minutes.
World No. 23 Zii Jia admitted that over-confidence played a big part in his defeat, especially in the deciding set.
“When the draw came out, a lot of people said I would have it easy and that made me become over-confident.
“I apologise to all the supporters but it’s normal for a young player like me. I’m still learning and I hope today’s defeat will be a valuable lesson for me. I will be back in training for the coming Singapore Open,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, national singles head coach Datuk Misbun Sidek said Zii Jia was nearly on par with the world’s best.
Although he lost to a lower-ranked opponent, Misbun was still satisfied with Zii Jia’s performance, adding that the Malaysian could have won if he had better control of his emotions.
“Of course we hoped he would win, but when a player is trying hard to get into the elite level, this is the risk. Emotional and mental stability are crucial.
“Overall, he played well, though there were some problems in the middle of the game, which his opponent capitalised on. What he must learn from this is to take everything taught to him in training and then apply different types of game plans against his opponents,” said Misbun. — Bernama
