Give Jonassen Time To Produce Champions - Hannah

RAWANG, July 31 (Bernama) -- Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh has called on all parties to give national singles coaching director Kenneth Jonassen the space and time to get the shuttlers firing again following their lacklustre performance in the 2025 Badminton Asia Junior Championships (BAJC) recently.

She said the ministry believes that it has channelled all the necessary support to the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) to ensure the 51-year-old coach can help improve the singles department.

“The new coach has just arrived and has yet to warm his seat to assess their performance properly. So, I feel that he deserves to be given time to evaluate their performance, and produce champions… this is something that cannot be achieved in a month or two.

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“I believe that support is best channelled through BAM because the ministry fully backs their efforts to have the best infrastructure,” she said when met at the closing of the 2025 Malaysian Women's Amateur Open golf championships at the Templer Park Country Club here today.

Hannah was commenting on a statement by national badminton legend Datuk Seri Lee Chong Wei yesterday, calling for the former Danish shuttler, who only joined the Akademi Badminton Malaysia (ABM) coaching setup less than a year ago, not to be burdened with high expectations in the short term.

Earlier, former national coach Wong Tat Meng had also warned that Malaysia would face a crisis in the singles department if no immediate action is taken to stop the rot in the development of the country’s junior shuttlers.

He issued the warning after witnessing the national men’s and women’s junior shuttlers crash out in the early rounds of the BAJC 2025, which ended on July 27.

-- BERNAMA