Tan Boon Heog and Koo Kien Keat to be tested in the All England Premier Super Series 2011
The upcoming event of the All England Premier Super Series 2011 will be a great test for Tan Boon Heog and Koo Kien Keat, the world number five pair of Malaysia, as the duo lost the semi-final of the German Open GP Gold 2011 to the Korean pair of Lee Yong
Dae and Jung Jae Sung, on March 5, at Mulheim, Germany.
In the presence of the top ranked pairs, the Malaysian will have a very tough time to proceed in the event.
Malaysia’s top pair of Kien Keat and Tan Boon has recently suffered a humiliating defeat from the hands of the world number three pair of Korea, who also won the title of the German open. The Korean shuttlers defeated the Malaysian pair for the second time
this year. The first defeat came to the Malaysian duo in the Korea Open Premier Super Series event 2011, at Seoul, South Korea. It was a straight-set match that has thrown the Badminton Association of Malaysia into desperation, as the country has no other
pair in the top ten which can deliver better performances in the upcoming All England series.
Kien Keat andTan Boon won the title of the All England Open in 2007. The former champions are not in ideal physical condition for the event this time. High performance director of the Badminton Association of Malaysia, James Selvaraj, is quite worried from
the bad performances of the top seeds of Malaysia.
He said, “They are only going downhill while pairs from South Korea (Yong-dae-Jae-sung), China (Cai Yun-Hai Feng) and Indonesia (Markis Kido-Hendra Setiawan) are getting more solid in all areas of their game.”
The high performance director further added, “We will have to look again into their fitness condition. How focused are they in their game? I find that their minds are somewhere else. Together with their coach, Rexy Mainaky, we will look into ways to improve
all these and turn them into players with quality strokes in their game.”
The duo is suffering with a bad patch and was unable to win any major event for the last one year and they desperately need a title win to get back on track. Kien Keat and Tan Boon are on the easy part of the draw, as the World Number One pair of Carsten
Mogensen and Mathias Boe of Denmark, are on the second-half of the draw.
Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei is the defending champion in the event, as he grabbed the All England Open title in 2010. Kien Keat and Tan Boon will be joining their compatriot in the event. They will be facing the winner of the Chinese pair of Fu Haifeng and
Cai Yun or the Korean duo of Yoo Yeon Seong and Ko Sung Hyun, in the semi-final stage. The World Number Five pair is quite determined to break the deadlock in the upcoming event of the All England open, starting from tomorrow on March 8, in Birmingham.
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