Malaysia’s badminton men’s singles coach Hendrawan is not too fond of having foreign shuttlers spar with Chong Wei, in order to improve his technique ahead of the Rio Olympics next year.
Chong Wei currently spars with Chong Wei Feng as well as Liew Daren – two players that are visibly not up the standards of the former world number one. Hendrawan though, feels that engaging foreign shuttlers could induce unwanted speculations.
“If we have training sessions with foreign players and Chong Wei ends up losing to that particular player in the Olympics, many would be speculating that the foreign player was a spy,” claimed Hendrawan as quoted from Harian Metro.
Hendrawan insists that for the time being, Chong Wei will be working as hard as possible with his Malaysian training partners in the form of Wei Feng and Liew Darren.
“We have to be wise with the training pattern and most importantly, we have to make sure that Chong Wei is comfortable. The players that are ranked lower than Wei Feng and Daren are not ready to be Chong Wei’s training partners,” he added.
At the same time, Hendrawan strongly agreed with Chong Wei’s former coach, Misbun Sidek that all stakeholders in Malaysia can play a big role in making sure that Chong Wei triumphs in Rio, next year.
“I have only been his coach for a short time, but based on my experience as a badminton player, the relationship between me and the player is important, especially since Chong Wei is a matured athlete.
“He needs to be comfortable. It takes a good relationship between us to make sure we can help him and talk to him. At times, he might not be able to focus and needs opinions, so we have to step in and help him.”
Chong Wei will next compete in the Malaysian Open Grand Prix Gold in January 2016 before going off to compete at the All England Championships.
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