BAM to hold Thomas, Uber Cup simulation meet

LUMPUR: The Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) is set to hold another warm-up tournament as preparation for the Thomas and Uber Cup finals scheduled from Oct 311 at Aarhus, Denmark, even as several more countries announced their withdrawal from the prestigious team event.

BAM said today that the inaugural President’s Cup to be held on Sept 16 and 17 respectively at the Akademi Badminton Malaysia (ABM), Bukit Kiara, will feature all 20 shuttlers called-up for the finals.

The national badminton governing body had previously organised an individual event, the BAM Invitational Championships last month.

BAM Director of Coaching,

Wong Choong Hann in a statement yesterday said the simulation tournament will give the players a glimpse of what was to come since many of the team members haven’t participated in the Thomas and Uber Cup finals.

“We are building upon our preparations from the Invitational Championships, with a team-based event. We are looking forward to the same competitiveness and explosiveness and there are other elements that we’re looking at too, team spirit and team bonding among the team members.

“Coming back from the motivational camp (held in Pulau Tioman early this month), I can see that the players are more open to their teammates. They have started to adapt to being open and to the sharing of experience. “They now know that they’re getting more through utilising the team’s resources instead of individual resources. That is a different level of efficiency that has its own reward; be it from training, mental, tactical and overall improvement,” he said.

Choong Hann added that the teams will be balanced, for example, if the first choice singles player is placed in Team A, then first doubles will go to Team B so that matches will be fair.

The team event will be held without spectators at the national badminton centre of excellence and broadcast live on Astro Arena.

So far, Asian giants Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia have pulled out from the Thomas and Uber Cup. -