KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 2 — National men’s top doubles player Aaron Chia hopes his partner Soh Wooi Yik and himself will open their campaign this season with a flying start at the Malaysian Open 2024, scheduled to take place at the Axiata Arena from January 9 to January 14.
Without revealing any specific target for the tournament, he is instead determined to put up his best performance before home fans at the Super 1000 championship.
"So far, preparations (Malaysian Open 2024) are all going fine. It is quite important for us to perform well, especially in our home ground," Chia said to the press after the training session today.
Chia-Soh's best achievement at the Malaysian Open was in the 2022 edition when they qualified for the semi-finals before losing to Japan's Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi, 21 - 23, 9 - 21.
After often failing to meet the target set in previous tournaments, Chia finally left it to the fans to set the correct target for the 2022 world champion pair.
This includes the time frame for them to reach the status of world number one doubles in the future.
"I think that (world number one) is always our target, but the time will come. I want to say a lot, but I cannot, as people may comment that wanting to be world number one is just talk.
"Because when you say you want to reach your target but in the end, you cannot, so I really do not like to talk about this and just play for myself," he said.
For the record, the world number four pair were ranked second in the world earlier last year, which was their best position in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings so far.
In the meantime, Chia hopes a holiday with his family in Hong Kong before Christmas will make him feel more refreshed for the new season after a busy schedule throughout last year.
Chia - Soh, who is the third seed, will face unseeded Danish pair Rasmus Kjaer-Frederik Sogaard in the first round of the Malaysian Open 2024.
— Bernama
