Seu Bock hopes Olympic draw will help Chong Wei – Badminton News
Men’s Singles coach of Malaysia Tey Seu Bock is not bothered with presence of three Chinese players in London Olympics and hoped that the draw will help Lee Chong Wei to excel in the mega event.
The 2012 edition of Olympics is going to be played under new format as Singles shuttlers will have to top their groups to march into knockout round. All the contenders will be divided into 16 groups, A to P.
In next stage, the top half of draw will comprise the winners of Group A to H while the lower half of the draw will have winners of Group I to P.
National coach Seu Bock thinks this format will provide Chong Wei relatively an easy ride if China goes with only two players in Olympics they will not be placed in same half which means one Chinese competitor for the Malaysian in one round.
He said, “China will have two representatives and usually, they will not put two players from the same country in the same half because of the national separation rule.”
According to Olympic rules, a country can have maximum three seats in Singles event only if all of its shuttlers are placed in top four of the world rankings.
China is hoping Chen Jin, currently World Number five, to join Lin Dan and Chen Long in the event and the shuttler stands fair chance to unseat World number four Peter Gade after winning three consecutive international titles.
However, the badminton guru Seu Bock is not worried with third Chinese contender as he has already done the calculations and thinks it will not jeopardise their stakes in the Olympics.
He said, “If Chen Jin is drawn in Group E and tops the group, he will be in the same half with Chong Wei in the knockout stage as the two other stronger Chinese players will be lumped in the other half.”
Seu Bock further added that they will not be depending on just draws as they are making sure that Chong Wei is well equipped to face any world class shuttler like Taufik Hidayat, Peter Gade and Lee Hyun Il along with the Chinese campaigners.
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