Zii Jia remains positive despite early exit from nationals

Lee Zii Jia insists his shock early exit in the National Championships last week was just a minor hiccup.

The 20-year-old national No. 1 entered the national meet in Ipoh as the hot favourite but ended up getting humbled by unheralded Datu Mohd Shah Eizlan Sardik of Sabah in the second round.

While Zii Jia was frustrated by the surprise setback, he believes the painful lesson will only make him stronger and promised to make amends at the German Open this week.

“It was a week to forget but I have already moved on. There’s no point dwelling on it and I take it as a learning curve,” said world No. 27 Zii Jia, who faces Holland’s Mark Caljouw in the opening hurdle today.

“I have said before that the national meet will serve as a good practice before my upcoming international assignments. Win or lose, it wasn’t going to affect me,” said Zii Jia.

“No player is going to win all the time. In fact, it may not be a bad thing for me to lose because each time I fall, I will learn from it and use it as motivation to come back stronger.”

After reaching the quarter-finals in every tournament he competed in this season – Thailand Masters, Malaysian Masters and Indonesian Masters – he will be aiming to go one better this time.

If he clears the first round, Zii Jia is expected to take on Angus Ng Ka Long of Hong Kong next.

A quarter-final clash against world No. 3 Chou Tien-chen of Taiwan is on the cards if he goes beyond the last 16.

World No. 1 Kento Momota of Japan and twotime Olympic gold medallist Lin Dan are in the top half of the draw.

The other Malaysians in the fray include four men’s doubles pairs Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani, Arif Abdul Latif-Nur Mohd Azriyn Ayub; Goh Jin Wei, Soniia Cheah (women’s singles), Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean and Vivian Hoo-Yap Cheng Wen (women’s doubles).