The Malaysian men’s badminton team was forced to cancel bringing in Ng Tze Yong as one of their men’s singles strengths.
The decision was announced by the neighboring country’s national training team, the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), today, Friday (19/4/2024).
BAM Coaching Director, Rexy Mainaky said that they were forced to withdraw Tze Yong due to problems in the recovery process after surgery for his spinal injury.
“Tze Yong’s condition is not good enough if he is forced to play,” said Rexy, quoted by Hybridnetworkyt.com from The Star.
“Therefore, we have no other choice but to drop him,” said the former Indonesian men’s doubles mainstay.
The 1996 Atlanta Olympic gold medalist said that Tze Yong’s position could still be replaced by another player.
One name put forward to fill Tze Yong’s quota is Choong Hon Jian.
However, Choong Hon Jian is a doubles specialist player, not men’s singles.
Regarding this, Rexy said that his team had far more options on the strength map in men’s doubles.
“We chose Hon Jian because we have more options in doubles than singles,” said Rexy again.
Fortunately, Malaysia has brought more men’s singles quota from the beginning where they initially brought 5 players.
After Tze Yong was canceled, Malaysia will still have other men’s singles options, including Lee Zii Jia, Leong Jun Hao, Cheam June Wei and Justin Hoh.
However, with Tze Yong’s absence, the second men’s singles spot will automatically be filled by a player whose ranking is far from Zii Jia.
Apart from that, in BAM’s press release, Tze Yong himself was said to be experiencing problems in the recovery process after surgery for the spinal injury he experienced earlier this year.
t was stated that there were rare conditions that hampered the recovery process and resulted in the recovery time taking longer.
This rare post-operative condition was only felt at the beginning of this week.
He also planned to go on the operating table again to overcome this.
” Ng Tze Yong’s health and condition is a priority,” explained Rexy in a BAM press release.
“Unfortunately, he suffered another injury. The Badminton Association of Malaysia will not neglect his health and will do its best to ensure his full recovery,” he said.