Coach Rexy breaks up Fairuzizuan and Zakry partnership
PETALING JAYA: The inevitable has happened in an end to a three-year men’s doubles partnership between Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari and Mohd Zakry Abdul Latif.
Chief coach Rexy Mainaky has given them new partners as he seeks ways to strengthen the elite doubles set-up with the 2012 London Olympics in mind.
Fairuzizuan will pair up with Ong Soon Hock while Zakry will be charting a new career path with Hoon Thien How.
It will the first time that Fairuzizuan will combine with Soon Hock but Zakry has played in a partnership with Thien How this year.
Zakry formed a scratch combination with Thien How for the second doubles match in the Thomas Cup quarter-final tie against Denmark in May and they almost pulled the rug from under All-England champions Lars Paaske-Jonas Rasmussen.
Malaysia managed to win the tie 3-2 to reach the semi-finals. Zakry-Thien How were also in the line-up for the tie against China but did not get to play the match as Malaysia had been beaten 0-3.
Fairuzizuan-Soon Hock will feature in their first international Open together at the China Masters scheduled for Sept 14-19 while Zakry-Thien How are down for the Japan Open the following week.
Fairuzizuan-Zakry broke into the limelight in 2008 with victory over the higher ranked Chinese pair of Guo Zhendong-Xie Zhongbo in a 2008 Thomas Cup semi-final tie in Jakarta.
They went on to capture back-to-back titles in the Singapore and Indonesian Opens. They also managed to reach the semi-finals of the world championships in Hyderabad last year, losing to eventual champions Fu Haifeng-Cai Yun of China to settle for the bronze medal.
But the duo went through a lean spell after that and suffered a series of early-round defeats.
There was further misery for Fairuzizuan when he was slapped a one-month ban by the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) for losing his cool against an unruly fan after a Thomas Cup Finals group tie against Japan.
Fairuzizuan-Zakry managed to win at the second-tier international Open tournament in India in July but the writing was on the wall after the younger back-up pairs began making up ground on them.
Rexy added that splitting the two pairs was not a temporary option but something that had to be done before the start of the 2012 Olympic qualification in May next year.
“I hope these new pairs will work out in the long term. We have to give them a few tournaments from now to see how they perform,” he said.
“We have to test them before the Olympic qualifying period begins. Fairuzizuan and Zakry both like to set the game and they should blend well with Soon Hock and Thien How respectively.”
There is the world championships in London next year to aim for but the Olympics will be the bigger goal in mind.
The challenge has been laid out as a country can only have two pairs in the Olympics and they have to be ranked among the top eight by the end of the one-year qualifying period.
* psstt.. bila nak jumpa?
hazlyn Post at 2-9-2010 13:45
sibuk memanjang aje aku ni, lyn... cepat pulak mase berjalan... tgk2 dah hujung2 ramadhan... ;)
kalau tak sempat berbuka sama2, kite beraya aje la nanti ekk...
hopefully ada la yg upload.. pelik gak kali ni rtm langsung takde buat coverage
live telecast takde boleh terima gak.. ini highlights pun takdak
sbb bulan pose ke?
hazlyn Post at 31-8-2010 09:06
tulah pasal ... apasal tah RTM ni ... ingatkan ada la tunjuk semi n final ... ni takde lansung ...
ituhari nampak nota kaki kat Astro Awani : Chong Wei mengalami sakit belakang - BAM
p/s: harap- ...
ambok Post at 2-9-2010 01:09
aa'ah ada baca kat paper .... misbun kata chongwei kena masa lawan rajiv ouseph ....
tapi dia still turun tuk lawan taufik ...
patutla masa 1st set tu rasa cam biasanye dia boleh retrieve shuttle tu tapi kali ni tak leh lak ...ingatkan dia malas nak main beria2 1st set ...
dengarnye dia akan withdraw dr china masters ...elok la tu ..bawak2 la berehat .... harap tak teruk injury nye ...
Post time 2-9-2010 08:55 AM
:re:
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