World champion Wooi Yik backs Zii Jia to recover from bad spell

Lee Zii Jia will always have the backing of good friend Soh Wooi Yik, who pledged to have the shuttler’s back amidst his tumultuous period to regain confidence following a flurry of early exits.

In his last three tournaments, the Malaysian men's singles ace did not progress beyond the quarter-finals.

The world number four crashed out in the Malaysia Open second round, and failed to get past the World Championships third round last month.

His misery was compounded with a first-round loss at the Japan Open last week.

In light of that, newly crowned world champion Soh vowed to help his close friend through these rough times.

“As you can see, he’s not in his best condition. He may not have the confidence. However, I believe Zii Jia will persevere and bounce back. I will support him on social media because I have been through this myself.

“Zii Jia was the one who helped me when I was down. He gave me lots of advice. I think being a champion himself, he will know how to overcome it. We often encourage each other.

“Although we train in different places, we spend a lot of time together,” Soh told New Straits Times.

Soh and partner Aaron Chia themselves were under-fire not too long ago as they failed their semi-finals tests in several tournaments.

But the pair weathered the storm to finally win their first major title when they ended Malaysia’s 45-year wait for a World Championships title.