KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia’s top men’s singles player, Lee Zii Jia, has hinted he may withdraw from next week’s Super 300 Swiss Open, admitting he may have made a mistake by rushing his return to competitive action following an ankle ligament injury.
The 2024 Paris Olympics bronze medallist suffered a shock first-round exit at the prestigious All England in Birmingham last night, falling 19-21, 21-16, 21-12 to Hong Kong’s Angus Ng.
The defeat was particularly surprising since Zii Jia has beaten him five times in a row since October last year.
The Malaysian independent star, who sustained his injury at the World Tour Finals in December, appeared far from his best during the match.
In his post-match interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF), the 2021 champion lamented: “Sometimes you have to accept the result. I have a good history here, but life goes on, and I have to look forward.”
He praised Angus’ performance, adding: “Angus played very well today. As you can see, he showed variety and played a lot of good shots. I couldn’t guess where they were going. Got to give him credit.”
When pressed on his injury recovery and his plans for next week’s Swiss Open, where he is slated to face Angus again, Zii Jia revealed he is only “about 50% recovered.”
He admitted: “I thought I was ready coming into the European leg of the Tour, but I’ve only had about two weeks of proper training before arriving here. Maybe I was rushing to come back—maybe it was the wrong decision. But things have happened, so I have to accept it. This injury has taken much longer to recover than I expected.”
World number seven Zii Jia remained non-committal about his participation in Basel, stating: “To be honest, I have no plans yet on whether I will compete next week. I will regroup with my team and monitor my injury closely. Until then, I have nothing planned.”
Zii Jia’s struggles continued a disappointing run of form, having also been knocked out in the quarter-finals of the Super 300 Orleans Masters last week by Ireland’s Nhat Nguyen.
It is worth noting that both Angus and Nhat are coached by former Malaysian internationals, Wong Choong Hann and Iskandar Zulkarnain Zainuddin, respectively.
Meanwhile, in the men’s doubles event at the All England, Malaysia’s former world champions Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik suffered another early exit.
The pair, who also crashed out in the first round of the Orleans Masters last week, lost 21-16, 16-21, 21-18 to Denmark’s Rasmus Kjaer and Frederik Sogaard. — March 12, 2025