Malaysian badminton, miserable prime-time train wreck

 

Malaysia’s badminton players spectacularly snubbed every virtue of fighting spirit at the Malaysia Open.

Despite home advantage, they were useless as an ashtray on a motorbike.

No daring. No resilience. And out they went in the early rounds of the season opener for the BWF World Tour.

The prime-time train wrecks offered a sobering reminder that Malaysian players are not in the top league of world badminton.

If what every Malaysian wanted was a performance, then this wasn’t it.

It wasn’t the kind of performance that makes you think as a fan that we are going to win gold at July’s Paris Olympics.

The reaction at the end of each loss the shuttlers suffered was: Where was the urgency? Where was the hunger? Where was the creativity?

Clueless or classy, we never know which Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Malaysia’s best hope for gold in men’s doubles in Paris, will turn up.

How ironic, then, that coach Tan Bin Shen gave the world No 4 a rating of seven out of 10 for their overall performance at the championships.

The players and their coach said simple mistakes that had cost Malaysia a place in the last four needed attention and improvement. Only now?

They argued that as soon as they made those minor mistakes, the Koreans, Kang Min Hyuk and Seo Seung Jae, became confident. Aaron and Wooi Yik have a confidence problem?

As former world champions, you don’t go into a match with the reigning world champions ill-prepared, especially when you have been on the world tour for years.

The comments of the other fallen national players at the tournament similarly felt like a cover version, a tribute to their debacles past.

I don’t know what they meant, I’m not fluent in drivel.

BA of Malaysia (BAM) coaching director Rexy Mainaky has apologised to fans and sponsors, and taken full responsibility for the poor displays at the home event.

He now wants his players to show more hunger and determination when playing for the country. Only now?

Rexy had led us to believe it would be a full-blooded attempt to end the Malaysia Open title drought this year, only for the national shuttlers to sink in front of their own furious fans.

It was the manner of the performances that will bring justifiable criticism down on Rexy’s head.

This unrelenting misery now has all the marks of Rexy’s reign coming to an end unless he can inspire his team to excel at next week’s India Open followed by the Indonesia Masters.

Should the players continue to show a lack of ambition at the upcoming meets, let’s stop spending public money on them under the Road to Paris programme.

Much as I’d like to end on a positive note, some things just don’t change.

There is no light at the end of the tunnel, just a broken-down train running on empty. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.