KUALA LUMPUR: With the Paris 2024 Olympics just some six months away, Malaysia’s top men’s singles shuttler Lee Zii Jia (pix) has added some French flavour to his training.
The 25-year-old has seized the opportunity to spar with French brothers – Toma Junior Popov and Christo Popov – in the warm-up session of the season-opening 2024 Malaysia Open starting tomorrow at the Axiata Arena here.
Zii Jia had also trained together with the Popov brothers when playing in overseas tournaments.
With Paris 2024, scheduled from July 26 to Aug 11, being Zii Jia’s main target, he feels the experience will help him deal with various playing styles.
“It is good to play with players from different countries because we can help each other (to improve). They’re among the top men’s singles players in Europe. Always good to have different sparring or training partners,” he told reporters after the official training here today.
“For now I will play in most of the Asian leg, except Thailand Masters (Jan 30 to Feb 4), and then in Europe. It depends on how it goes; if I can qualify early, I will cut down on tournaments.
“It would be pointless to play in many tournaments without getting good results. Paris rankings are based on the 10 best tournaments only,” he said.
Both Zii Jia and Ng Tze Yong, now ranked 13th in the Paris qualifiers, have a good chance of qualifying for Paris as a country can have two representatives in the singles if both are in the top 16 at the end of the qualifying period on April 28.
Zii Jia, who will begin his Malaysia Open campaign against China’s Lu Guang Zu tomorrow, will be looking forward to doing better this time as he has not progressed beyond the second round since his debut in 2019.
In the last edition, he was stunned by Japan’s Kodai Naraoka in the first round.
Meanwhile, world number 25 Toma Junior is positive about his sparring sessions with Zii Jia.
“Good to have some time training together as I need to raise my game to be among the best in the world. Usually, I train together with my brother, and we have almost the same style. Now it is good to have some changes; it is motivating.
“Last year was good for me. I managed to upset some players in the top five and cruised into a few semi-finals. The Olympics preparations are quite long and for the moment, my brother and I are trying to make it in both singles and doubles,” he said. –Bernama
