Taufik puts aside dispute to focus on All England
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's top shuttler Taufik Hidayat will put aside his differences with the Badminton Association of Indonesia (PBSI) to focus on winning the All England next month.
"Coach Agus Dwi Santoso has announced that PBSI will send me to the All England and I want to concentrate on reaching my goal with limited preparation," Taufik told The Jakarta Post by phone.
"However, I can't guarantee that I will win the event considering the limited time for preparation. PBSI closed the training center for two months and I only have three weeks left to reach my peak form.
"I also still have to adapt to the new coach and it won't be that easy."
Taufik had a disagreement with PBSI after the organization dropped his coach Mulyo Handoyo and only hired Agus for the men's singles.
PBSI chairman Subagyo Hadisiswoyo said the reason for dropping Mulyo was due to his inability to stop Taufik from criticizing PBSI and because of a personal problem.
The 19-year-old Taufik, world number four, had threatened to quit the national squad and skip the All England, but he changed his mind after meeting Mulyo on Thursday evening.
Mulyo turned down PBSI's offer to coach Taufik only until the All England in Birmingham, England, from March 7 to March 11.
"I have to turn down the offer because it was not good enough. It doesn't provide any certainty for my career because the contract is too short. It would give less than a month to prepare him for All England," he told the Post by phone.
"Besides, it would be too great a burden for Taufik to perform well in the event because he has to win. It would be bad for him if I accepted the offer, despite it being at his request.
"We decided to turn down the offer unless PBSI agreed to extend the contract until the World Championships (in Seville, Spain, in May)."
Taufik said he had started practicing with men's doubles players and had been supervised by Indonesian Badminton Center training director Christian Hadinata.
"I'm not ready to be coached by Mas Agus, although I don't have any problems with him. Sometimes I feel jealous of the other shuttlers who are training with him. I don't know why this happened to me.
"I feel sad. I want to start training like the others but I'm still confused about the whole thing."
Separately, PBSI secretary-general Leo Chandra Wiranata said he had prepared letter of appointment for Mulyo for his All England assignment.
"If everything is OK, Pak Subagyo can sign the letter right away and Mulyo can join the center again," he said.
"But we'll have to forget it if no deal is reached."
Leo also said PBSI decided to call 36 more juniors to be tested in the center. Earlier, PBSI named 16 shuttlers to be automatically admitted to the center and 10 shuttlers to be tested.
"Sixty-two juniors will be tested. We expect to run the one- week tests next week starting Monday," he said. "We may also increase the number of juniors in the center from 21 to 24. But it will depend on the test results."
Leo denied the accusation that PBSI was being inconsistent in its decision concerning the junior players.
"It's not that PBSI is being inconsistent in its decision. We try to accommodate all aspirations aired by our chapters. That's why we called additional junior shuttlers," he said.
"Besides, we need more shuttlers on the junior squad because we have to check their potential carefully. We can still change their event from double to single or the other way around," he continued. (nvn/yan)