Men’s Doubles shuttler Tan Boon Heong confident to live up to expectations in 2012 Olympic Games
Malaysia’s Men’s Doubles player Tan Boon Heong does not want to dwell in the bad memories of 2008 Beijing Olympics and is confident to live up to expectations at the upcoming 2012 Olympic Games.
The World Number 8 Boon Heong and Koo Kien Keat, who have been facing the most horrible bad patch of their professional career, will be underdogs at the mega event and their chances to win a medal cannot be completely ruled out as they have what it take to beat top shuttlers in the world.
At the Beijing Olympics, Boon Heong and his partner Koo Kien Keat lost to Indonesia’s Hendra Setiawan and Markis Kido for the first time in their seven head-to-head meetings and crashed out in the event at the quarter-final stage.
The Indonesian’s played remarkable badminton and eventually won the Men’s Doubles gold medal but failed to qualify for London Olympics because of their lower world ranking.
While talking about their quarter-final loss to Indonesian shuttlers, Boon Heong said that it was for the first time they could not win against Kido and Setiawan.
He stated, “We had won all our previous six outings against them, including at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. But they blew us away in Beijing. It was our first Olympics and we were nervous. The defeat affected us in a big way and we struggled for a while before we regained our confidence.”
He further added, “Kien Keat and I have decided not to dwell on our mediocre form in recent tournaments. For now, all our focus is on London.”
Boon Heong and Kien Keat have been losing against many lower ranked shuttlers at international stage for the last more than two years and remained struggling hard to get their confidence back.
Now they are looking in a better position as they have shown a little improvement in their attitude on court and have displayed their tremendous skills in the last couple of tournaments.
At London, 16 pairs from five continents of the world will be competing for glory and there is not much skills gap between all shuttlers that will make the competition interesting and the Malaysians stand a chance to prove their worth by winning a medal in mega event.
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