National shuttlers Chong Wei Feng and Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif have both successfully made it through to the finals of 2015 SEA Games which will take place today.
Their success has ended Malaysia’s 14 year drought of gold medals. The last time Malaysia bagged a gold medal was in 2001 through Roslin Hashim.
Wei Feng was defeated by Thailand’s Tanongsak Saensombonsuk 13-21 in the opening set but eventually bounced back to conquer the second and third set 21-18 and 21-15 just within 54 minutes.
According to Wei Feng, he almost gave up hope after the first set but the motivation from Morten Frost Hansen, the technical director of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) was one of the reasons he continued to fight and find his rhythm to claim a rubber set.
“When I lost the first set, I was in doubt but I want to thank Frost who was giving me support. He told me to continue to focus on the game even though my opponent was leading and he reminded me to make the score gap as small as possible because if my opponent was five or six points ahead of me, I will lose,” said Wei Feng after the match as quoted from Kosmo.
“From each math to the other, I feel that my performance is getting better and when I faced Tanongsak, I knew that I was capable of winning if I played well.”
“I had to work really hard after recovering from my injury. The way I held it in was also not that well since the last two or three months. I want to focus on fixing my resistance for tomorrow’s (today) match.”
Meanwhile, Arif calmly knocked off Singapore’s Loh Kean Yew in straight sets 22-20 and 21-15 to book his spot in the finals.
Arif expressed that he was nervous in the start of the match as his opponent gained massive support from the crowd.
“Frost told me to focus and then I started to get more points. My confidence increased. I know that he (Kean Yew) is from Malaysia but he had stayed here for a long time and became a Singapore citizen. So, he was playing for his country and I was playing for mine.”
“I think playing against Wei Feng tomorrow (today) will be a 50-50 shot. I hope that we can present a better performance in the finals. I will try my best to get a gold medal.”
However, things were not that triumphant for 15-year-old Goh Jin Wei as she failed to make it to the women’s singles final after losing to Hanna Ramadini from Indonesia 21-16, 12-21, 18-21.
Photo credits: Bernama
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