Double anxiety

Debutants Yew Sin-Ee Yi just can’t afford to fail

NATIONAL men’s doubles pair Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi are only making their first appearance in the Asian Games but they know they can’t afford to flop.

The world No. 25 were on the brink of being dropped from the Asiad squad as the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) had contemplated replacing them with youngsters Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, who did well to reach the quarter- finals of the World Championships in Nanjing earlier this month.

Aaron-Wooi Yik had even overtaken Yew Sin-Ee Yi as the national No. 2 last week after moving to No. 24 in the world rankings.

Fortunately, BAM stuck with Yew Sin-Ee Yi and the duo want to show why they deserved to be in Jakarta by winning a medal in the individual competition starting tomorrow.

The pair did not play in Malaysia’s 3-0 first-round defeat by Japan in the team event on Monday.

“There’s a lot at stake in our maiden ( Asiad) appearance,” admitted Yew Sin.

“We have no choice but to put up a really good show to repay BAM’s faith in us.

“It’s going to be very tough to win a medal here as all the top pairs in the world are also competing this week. But that’s not going to stop us.

“We’ll try to make it semis.”

World No. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon-Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia are the hot favourites.

The other gold contenders are recently crowned world champions Li Junhui-Liu Yuchen of China, Takeshi Kamura-Keigo Sonoda of Japan and 2016 Rio Olympic gold medallists Liu Cheng-Zhang Nan of China.

Kuala Lumpur SEA Games silver medallists Yew Sin-Ee Yi hope to be consistent.

“I’m convinced that we have the quality to fight any of the world’s top five pairs. We’ve played the likes of Kevin-Marcus and Junhui- to the Yuchen and stretched them three games,” said Yew Sin.

“If we can push ourselves and perhaps with some luck, I think we can upset them. It’s important for us to be consistent.

“We were not at the Malaysian Open, we defeated Mathias BoeCarsten Mogensen (of Denmark) but lost in the next round.”

The other Malaysian entries in the individual events are Liew Daren, Lee Zii Jia (men’s singles), Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong (men’s doubles), Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean (women’s doubles) and Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying and Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai Jemie (mixed doubles). to