Jakarta: Despite all the talk about winning at least two medals in the 2018 Asian Games badminton event, Malaysia, once a badminton powerhouse, was left empty-handed as two of its men’s doubles pairs lost their respective quarter-final matches against Indonesian shuttlers on Sunday.
Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong who won the Incheon Asian Games bronze medal four years ago, put up a spirited challenge before going down 20-23, 19-21 in a hard-fought battle against World No. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia.
Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo will play Lee Jhe-Huei/Lee Yang of Taiwan in the semi-finals.
As for Teo Ee Yi/Ong Yew Sin, they failed to showed their poise on court by going down to local players Fajar Alfian Muhammad/Rian Ardianto easily 17-21, 13-21. Muhammad/Ardianto will take on reigning World Champions Liu Yuchen/Li Junhui of China in the last four.
“We were still able to provide some resistance in the first set, but we made too many mistakes in the second,” said Ong.
“I didn’t play my best,” added Ong.
Malaysia’s results in the 2018 Asian Games have tied its worst record from the 1974 to the 1986 Asian Games where it returned without any medals from the sport of badminton.
The president of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) Mohamad Norza Zakaria was quick to put out fire on Sunday evening in the aftermath of poor performance by Malaysian shuttlers and urged BAM’s Coaching and Training (C&T) Committee to take responsibility for the bad results in Jakarta.
“Our players were not consistent, they often started well but finished badly in a match,” said Zakaria.
“The new C&T team needs to take responsibility for the failure in the Asian Games and make something drastic changes,” added Zakaria.
