Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia’s doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky did not want to take the risk of breaking up the World No. 6 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik.
Mainaky said that it’s due to other Malaysian men’s doubles players all have much lower rankings than Chia/Soh, such as World No. 38 Man Wei Chong/Tee Kai Wun and World No. 80 Arif Junaidi/Muhammad Haikal.
“If we are the Indonesia team, I think we have no problem splitting them up because Indonesia has two young pairs that are ranked in the top 20 such as World No. 14 Pramudya Kusumawardana/Yeremia Erich Yoche Yacob Rambitan and World No. 20 Muhammad Shohibul Fikri/Bagas Maulana.
“In that case, those Indonesian men’s pairs also don’t need a long time to reach higher rankings and could quickly be eligible for tournaments such as Super 1000. But in Malaysia, let’s say we want to pair Aaron with younger players, they will need to start by playing at lower level tournaments and will definitely lose a lot of opportunities to compete at higher-level tournaments,” said Mainaky in an online press conference.
Meanwhile, Mainaky didn’t hide his disappointment with the performance of the top two main men’s doubles pairs from the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), including Chia/Soh and the World No. 12 Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin.
Mainaiky took the example of the meeting between Chia/Soh and the Malaysia Masters champions Fajar Alfian/Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia.
“When looking back at the videos, we have set up a game plan for Aaron and Wooi Yik before the match between them and the Indonesian pair. But when they were on the court, they were playing very differently than what we’ve planned. They couldn’t control their emotion, panic, and assumed they were better than Fajar-Rian and eventually experienced a panic attack on the court,” said Mainaky.
“On the other hand, when Fajar/Rian were warming up, they were communicating like normal and didn’t look stressed while Aaron/Wooi Yik was thinking too much in their head,” added Mainaky.
“They should play like they have nothing to lose. They should be honest by opening up their feelings in their hearts to me so that we can find a solution for them,” continued Mainaky.
Meanwhile, Mainaky was also unhappy with the performance of Goh Sze Fei/Nur Izzuddin for their inconsistency.
Goh/Izzuddin were defeated by Alfian/Ardianto in the first round of Malaysia Masters.
“They have the skill and ability to go far. However, they do not do well against Indonesian pairs,” explained Mainaky.
Nevertheless, Mainaky believed that the disappointment in both Malaysia Open and Malaysia Masters would fuel Chia/Soh’s motivation to excel at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
The 2022 Commonwealth Games are scheduled to take place from July 28 to August 8.
