INDONESIA’S Mulyo Handoyo and Denmark’s Kenneth Jonassen are among the candidates on the radar of Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) to fill the men’s singles head coach position.
The matter was shared by Academy Badminton Malaysia (ABM) coaching director Rexy Mainaky who also said that whoever is selected will sign a contract until the 2028 Olympic Games.
“There are some candidates that I have handed over to the management to discuss with them. We cannot say (Mulyo and Kenneth) the exact name (coach) but both are in consideration.
“We want as soon as possible but it is up to selected individual but at the latest on Dec 1 or worse maybe next year (a new coach will come in) because next year we have the Malaysia Open,“ he told reporters after a training session at ABM, Bukit Kiara today .
Asked about the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) set for the coach, Rexy hopes that three or four more quality men’s singles players will be unearthed to contribute points in the Thomas Cup, as well as in the Commonwealth Games, Asian Games, SEA Games and several other major tournaments.
He also hoped that the coach would be able to guide the players to win higher titles in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) calendar such as Super 500 or Super 750.
“One maybe appointed as coach for men’s and women’s singles or both to coach either men’s singles or women’s singles,“ he said.
Meanwhile, Rexy explained that moving Hoon Thien How, who previously managed the senior women’s doubles to the junior men’s doubles, was not aimed at denying his ability but rather to take advantage of his expertise in strengthening the country’s badminton back-up sector.
Rexy also emphasised that all parties need to understand that the junior sector cannot be judged based on performance alone but rather on the development of quality players.
“We are giving the opportunity to the coach to experience developing junior players, because if we only think of the seniors, we may run out of junior players one day,“ he said.
BAM previously announced a restructuring of its coaching line-up, including not continuing the service of men’s singles coach, Hendrawan, who has been with BAM since 2009, effective Oct 31.
The restructuring done by BAM is seen as incomplete as there are three positions, namely the head coach of men’s singles, women’s and women’s doubles, still vacant.
Mulyo had previously coached Taufik Hidayat to win the 2004 Olympic men’s singles gold and the 2005 world title.
While Jonassen once guided Viktor Axelsen to his first Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 2021 and also helped the Dane win the 2017 world title.
