Kuala Lumpur: It would be a great day for all the badminton fans in Malaysia if World No. 2 men’s singles player – Lee Zii Jia and World No. 25 Ng Tze Yong could square off against each other in the second round of the 2023 Malaysia Open where the first round matches will begin on Jan 10, 2023.
Lee told Malaysian media that the fans must be very excited to witness the meeting between the two best men’s singles players of Malaysia.
“I think it will be a very interesting match for Malaysian fans when two of the best players in the country play against each other. Of course, everyone wants to watch this match,” said Lee.
“Tze Yong is currently going through what I have gone through before. He is a smart player and I believe he knows what he needs to do to improve his level of performance,” added Lee.
Meanwhile, Ng said that if he could advance to the second round and play against Lee, he would give his best performance.
“If we could face each other in the second round, of course, we will play our best,” said Ng.
However, before they could meet in the second round, both must clear their respective first-round opponents.
Lee has a tougher first-round matchup than Ng as he is scheduled to face World No. 7 Kodai Naraoka of Japan on Wednesday.
“Kodai likes to play long rallies. If you look at almost all of his matches last year, a lot of them took more than an hour,” explained Lee.
“I’ll play patiently and I need to be ready to play in long matches,” concluded Lee.
The unseeded Ng was drawn to meet World No. 28 Nhat Nguyen from Ireland in the first round.
