New world number three wants to see juniors close the gap to seniors

The world number three mixed doubles pair were the most senior shuttlers in the national team for the recently concluded Badminton Asia Mixed Team Championships (BAMTC), which saw Malaysia crash out in the group stage.

Based on that result which saw Malaysia compete without the likes of Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik & Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei, Lai admitted there is a gap in class between the established stars and the upcoming players.

“We have talented players, but the gap with the seniors is obvious. Based on the BAMTC outcome, we can conclude that we need to close the gap between the juniors and seniors. We hope the players will do better,” said Lai.

Malaysia failed to make it past the BAMTC group stage after they suffered consecutive 2-3 defeats against Hong Kong and Indonesia.

But there was good news for Goh-Lai upon returning home from China.

On Tuesday, the husband-wife pair rose to third on the world rankings ,which is their highest since they were paired together back in 2016.

“Having this ranking will give us a good seeding, which will result in a good draw in tournaments. It gives us great motivation to give our best on court,” they added.

Goh-Lai’s career high ranking comes on the back of their impressive start on the World Tour this year, which saw them reach the semi-finals of the Malaysia and India Open.

Last year proved their best year as a pair, when they won the Swiss Open and Malaysia Masters, besides finishing second at the China Open.