{"id":16026,"date":"2023-01-08T19:01:35","date_gmt":"2023-01-08T11:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=16026"},"modified":"2023-01-08T19:01:37","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T11:01:37","slug":"malaysia-open-zii-jia-fit-ready-to-mount-serious-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=16026","title":{"rendered":"Malaysia Open: Zii Jia fit, ready to mount serious challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8<\/strong> —\u00a0National badminton men’s singles ace\u00a0Lee Zii Jia feels he is in the best condition and ready to mount a serious challenge in the Malaysia\u00a0Open 2023 beginning\u00a0Tuesday after declaring himself free from injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The World No 2 player is confident of putting up a better show in the prestigious tournament for the home fans after a disappointing performance in last year\u2019s edition which saw him crashing out in the second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 24-year-old shuttler will go into the tournament as the second seed, but even then faces a tricky first-round encounter against Japanese player\u00a0Kodai Naraoka, who ended his campaign last year by bagging third place at the World Tour Finals in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"zii<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cCompared to last year, my condition is really good now and I hope things will go my way and I get\u00a0good results here.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do not know about his (Kodai Naraoka) condition so far, but I have to be prepared one hundred per cent,\u201d <\/em>he told reporters after a training session here today.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zii Jia has had some forgettable Malaysian Opens in the past. Besides his second-round loss to unheralded Indonesian player Shesar Hiren Rhustavito last year, he suffered a first-round defeat to Thailand\u2019s S. Avihingsanon in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2022 Badminton Asia Championships champion also spoke excitedly over what could be an all-Malaysian second-round encounter with Ng Tze Yong should both clear their first-round matches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the Malaysian fans, I feel if we\u00a0(Zii Jia-Tze Yong) were to meet in the second round, the match will be really interesting. I have yet to play him in any tournament\u00a0before.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike I mentioned before, he (Tze Yong) is an intelligent player. He knows what needs to be done to improve and is very clear on what he wants to do,\u201d<\/em> Zii Jia said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMT<\/a> as reported by Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 8 —\u00a0National badminton men’s singles ace\u00a0Lee Zii Jia feels he is in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-sports"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",1174,702,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM-300x179.png",300,179,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM-768x459.png",640,383,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM-1024x612.png",640,383,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",1174,702,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",1174,702,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",1174,702,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",1024,612,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Screenshot-2023-01-08-at-6.59.17-PM.png",720,431,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Sports<\/a>","tag_info":"Sports","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16028,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16026\/revisions\/16028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}