Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia is always a favorite stop on the Yonex The Legends’ Vision tour and now the Yonex MIX & MATCH Badminton Challenge, mostly because of the former World No. 1 men’s singles player Lee Chong Wei would always participate in these events that take place in his home country.
However, due to the conditional movement control order (CMCO) in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor areas has been extended until Dec 31 in order prevent and to control the spread of COVID-19, the Malaysia leg of MIX & MATCH Badminton Challenge which was scheduled to take place on Dec 28th, has now been postponed.
Alice Lee, the regional operations manager of Sunrise Sports and also the organizer of the event, has confirmed that the Dec 28th event was canceled.
“We are working on rescheduling the event. Yonex Japan will soon provide the updates,” said Lee.
In addition to Lee Chong Wei, his wife, Wong Mew Choo was also planning to participate in the event and to play mixed doubles with Lee. World No. 14 men’s pair Goh V Shem/Tan Wee Kiong were also slated to join the event, as they were sponsored by Yonex.
In the MIX & MATCH Badminton Challenge, there will be two teams comprising of two captains, one of whom will be Lee. The captains will then pick 5 other shuttlers to form a six-player team to compete in a format of two singles and three doubles. The competition employs a new “flight” system which allows those 6 players in every team to switch freely between points.
The matches will be live-streamed on Yonex’s YouTube channel or Yonex Badminton Facebook.
The event has already been held in Japan (Nov 29), South Korea (Dec 5), Indonesia (Dec 11), and China (Dec 12) with Kento Momota, Lee Yong-Dae, Taufik Hidayat, and Lin Dan had some fun moments on the court with fans during the event that took place in their respective countries.
The India leg which was scheduled to kick off on Dec 19 was canceled due to COVID-19, while the Denmark event too has been postponed until further notice. Meanwhile, the Taiwan leg will go ahead on Dec 26 as scheduled.
