Partnership with Aaron is strong, titles will come: Wooi Yik

KUALA LUMPUR – National men’s doubles shuttler Soh Wooi Yik says it will be unfair to break up his partnership with Aaron Chia over their “failure” to win an Open championship since being paired up in 2017.

According to him, their achievements have been just as good as the other pairs, besides still being ranked as the country’s number one combination.

“Just because we have not won any Open titles, some have judged that Aaron and I are not compatible as a pair. Our achievements have not been bad, we are really consistent compared to other combinations and we have proven it by winning the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.

“We have something special, but the time has not come yet for us to win a title. We will continue with our partnership and our connection remains strong,” he told reporters after their training session here today.

Wooi Yik also said that it never crossed his mind to part with Aaron. 

The compatibility of the world number six pair has been questioned by local sports fans after failing to capitalise on home ground advantage at the Malaysia Open 2022 and Malaysia Masters 2022, where they crashed out in the semi-finals of both tournaments.

Aaron-Wooi Yik lost 21-23, 9-21 to world number two Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi of Japan in the Malaysia Open 2022 and 14-21, 21-19, 10-21 to world number five Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia in the Malaysia Masters 2022.

However, Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky had, on Sunday, said he would not risk splitting up the national number pair for now.

Rexy said it would be very difficult to take such a drastic step as the reserves in BAM had yet to reach a satisfactory level, besides being ranked way behind Aaron-Wooi Yik.

For example, Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun are ranked 38th in the world while Wan Arif Wan Junaidi-Muhammad Haikal Nazri are world number 80.

As for Rexy wanting Aaron-Wooi Yik to come clean about what is truly holding them back, Wooi Yik said they have always spoken up about all the problems they faced with the panel of coaches during training sessions. – Bernama, July 15, 2022