Well... that was a pathetic showing at the German Open 2022 semi.. and overall tournament .. he seems out of it.. throughout... hmmm
It would be great if it followed the exact trajectory in 2021: Lost to Kunlavut in a tournament before AE, beat Momota in QF, and beat Axelsen in Final.
Don’t understand this thing about greediness. He’s a professional and has every right to seek out better terms for himself. Life of a sportsperson is short. He might only get a contract like this once in his life. He won’t retain sponsors if his form goes down. BAM won’t retain him if his form goes down.
There's no greediness at all. It's about your life after your sporting career has ended. There are so many sportsperson earning hundreds of millions (USD), tennis, boxing, motor racing, golf and so on.
With RM11 million a year + 10 more years, Zii Jia can provide for his family, his children, his grand children, and so on easily. That is brilliant thinking on his part.
There are no 11 million a year. Only : 7 years for RM11.7 million with sports equipment company Victor. That is RM1.67 million a year or RM139,000 a month. And he has to pay his own coaches and others. Read https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/leaders/2022/03/778891/nst-leader-audacious-bid
Yeah, I got confused. I meant to say "with a million per year". I think coaches and team payment can just be negated with sponsorship. Lee Zii Jia is probably one of the most popular people in Malaysia right now. There is no shortage for his ads.
Maybe that is why he quite BAM + he gets to use Victor rackets again (admittedly, after he changed to Yonex, his performance got worse.)
So far coming true. Today's match you can say more effort to beat Momota without regard to pacing for next match. Hope he recover quickly for tomorrow's match.
The decider was a massacre. The Victor effect is in full flow. Sent from my M2007J20CG using Tapatalk
This is why people are gullible - 11 million RM over 7 year gets turned into 11million RM a year and then 11million each year over 10 years. Dang, I wish my life had a result like that so easily.
Although Momota played terribly yesterday, LZJ definitely brought his A game. He did not make a single smashing mistake in the entirety of game 1, first half of game 2 and the entire game 3 as well if I recall correctly, which is rather surprising as he tends to have a few smashes here and there that would go down the net historically. It's probably also a sign of confidence when you are trailing in your deciding game and you try something as frivolous as hitting the shuttle below the crotch. He still has that mentality issue where he gets impatient when his attacks aren't getting through which is evident in game 2. He is probably aware of it as he pointed at his head at one point in game 3 after the interval to stay focused. There is also still the part of his game where he likes body smashes a bit too much, it works against less capable players but it's really not that effective against players of similar level who are prepared to take it. And I wonder what's wrong with Momota yesterday, his smashes seemed weaker than even WS players.
Despite the loss tonight, it's the best I have seen LZJ play in a long time. Instead of attacking mindlessly when his smashes couldn't get through, he played a very patient rally game and had uncharacteristically low amount of mistakes doing so, all while retrieving some seemingly impossible shots. No doubt that he could have done better in key moments or employed better game strategies but Sen has shown that he is capable of coming back from a deficit even when playing against someone as good as Viktor (German Open), and Sen is definitely in red hot form right now so there's no shame in losing to him. It is interesting that LZJ has hired Darren Liew to be his training partner and coach, I am sure he'll learn a thing or two from Darren's experience and composure on court which he so sorely needs at the moment.
