Badminton News: Stay hungry to defend the world title. That’s the challenge that National Director of Doubles Coaching Rexy Mainaky issued to top men’s duo Aaron Chia / Soh Wooi Yik.
World number 4 Aaron-Wooi Yik faces an uphill task to defend his historic world crown at the world championships August 21-27 in Copenhagen after an inconsistent year so far.
The pair finished runners-up at the Indian Open in January and the Indonesia Open in June, but failed to reach the semi-finals in most of their recent matches, respectively. Korea Open, Japan Open and Australian Open.
Rexy Mainaky admitted Aaron-Wooi Yik failed to live up to expectations at the tournament and called on the pair to keep their hunger up in defense of their world title defence.
“I think their urge to keep winning titles is still not enough,” Rexy said.
“If you look, they haven’t won a title since last year’s world crown,” he said.
“They reached the quarter-finals in Japan and Australia and lost in the second round against South Korea, but they should have gone further. They must maintain their hunger if they want to fight for titles again world.”
Rexy Mainaky also thinks the situation is different for Aaron/Wooi Yik compared to last year when the pair also suffered from a drop in form ahead of the World Clash in Tokyo before coming back in stunning fashion to claim the title.
Then Aaron-Wooi Yik, who were heavy favorites to win individual gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, was stunned by a shock loss to hosts Ben Lane/Sean Vendy in the last four and was forced to retire. settle for bronze. The former was heavily criticized but showed great fighting spirit to go on to make history in Tokyo three weeks later.
“Last year they came out of nowhere and won the title,” Rexy said.
“This time it’s not the same for them because they are the defending champions. We can’t take it for granted that they can repeat the same feat when they are out of shape now. On the contrary, it is important for them to analyze their mistakes in the three tournaments and avoid making the same mistakes again.
Independent couple and world number 7 Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi will also participate in the world match.
The other top 10 pairs in the tournament are Fajar Alfian/Rian Ardianto of India (#1), Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty of India (#2), Liang Weikeng/Wang Chang of China (#3), Takuro Hoki / Yugo Kobayashi from Japan (#5), Liu Yuchen/Ou Xuanyi from China (#6), Mohammad Ahsan/Hendra Setiawan from Indonesia (#8), Kang Min-hyuk/Seo Seung-jae from Korea from the South (n°9) and Leo Rolly Carnando / Daniel Marthin from Indonesia (n°10).
Article tags: Rexy Mainaky, Aaron Chia, Soh Woii Yik
