Hard work pays off as Vivian-lim in Tour Finals

Vivian Hoo’s perseverance as an independent player received the best possible reward when she confirmed her spot in the World Tour Finals with Lim Chiew Sien in the women’s doubles.

Vivian-chiew Sien, finished seventh in the World Tour rankings where French Open champions Pearly Tan-m. Thinaah also qualified by finishing eighth.

The two pairs were among the six Malaysian combinations who made it to the World Tour Finals which will be held in Bangkok from Dec 7-11.

World champions Aaron Chia-soh Wooi Yik and Ong Yew Sin-teo Ee Yi qualified for the men’s doubles while independent mixed doubles pairs Tan Kian Meng-lai Pei Jing and Goh Soon Huat-shevon Lai Jemie also made it to the Tour Finals.

Vivian, who won the 2014 Commonwealth Games with Woon Khe Wei and defended her title in 2018 Gold Coast with Chow Mei Kuan, was delighted to be recognised as one of the top eight performers in the Badminton World federation (BWF) world tour calendar.

“I feel happy to be able to qualify for the World Tour Finals. We consider ourselves lucky to be able to participate in more tournaments which gave us the advantage to qualify,” said the 32-year-old Vivian.

“All the qualifiers are top 10 ranked pairs, so we will just give our best regardless of who I will be playing against.”

Vivian also expressed her gratitude to independent coach Chin Eei Hui who has guided them for the last one year.

“We were a new combination when we started to train under her early this year. She helped us to improve our combination and tactics,” added Vivian.

They will be battling against the likes of world champions Chen Qingchen-jia Yifan of China and top qualifiers for the World Tour Finals, Jeong Na-eun-kim Hye-jeong of South Korea.

In the men’s singles, Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen of Denmark led the list of qualifiers while Malaysian Lee Zii Jia will be the first reserve at ninth spot and has an outside chance of making the cut if a shuttler withdraws from the competition.