KUALA LUMPUR: Former international Wong Choong Hann insists that his current role as the men's singles coach with Hong Kong BA is just as challenging, despite having only four players to look after.
The 46-year-old has already completed a six-month stint thus far since dropping a bombshell by resigning as the BAM singles coaching director in June last year.
He replaced compatriot Wong Tat Meng, who quit HKBA to become national No. 1 Lee Zii Jia's coach.
During his previous five-year tenure with BAM, Chong Hann at one point, had to oversee more than 50 players across all five events as a national team supremo.
Even after being redesignated as the singles coaching director following the arrival of Indonesian doubles coach Rexy Mainaky, Choong Hann still had no fewer than 15 players under his watch.
This week, Choong Hann, who travelled home with the Hong Kong national team for the Malaysia Open, was seen in a jovial mood as he was approached by a group of Malaysian media.
The first question posed to him was whether he's finding his new workplace easier.
"I wouldn't say it's easy really," said Choong Hann, who guided world No. 20 Angus Ng to a convinving 21-15, 21-9 opening round win over Japan's Kanta Tsuneyama on Tuesday.
"Everywhere I go, I will always strive to do my best and job well. To boost your players' performance, I still need to put in just as much effort and spend as much time."
Besides Angus, the other three players under Choong Hann's charge are world No. 17 Lee Cheuk Yiu, Chan Yin Chak (No. 75) and Jason Gunawan (No. 105).
Among the quartet, Choong Hann has highlighted that his main objective is to guide Cheuk Yiu and Angus in their quest to qualify for the Paris Olympics.
As Cheuk Yiu currently holds the provisional qualification at No. 16, Choong Hann faces the challenge of assisting Angus in breaking into the top 16 to secure maximum representation of two spots for Hong Kong.
"My main task is to get two of our men's singles players to the Olympics. At the moment Cheuk Yiu and Ka Long are still in the running, we will try our best to make it happen," said Choong Hann.
Despite being based overseas now, Choong Hann admitted that he still keeps tabs on the development of Malaysian shuttlers.
He is particularly impressed with Ng Tze Yong's progress, noting that Tze Yong managed to break into the top 15 in the second half of last year.
"Well, I have been receiving updates about our players as I scroll through my Facebook newsfeed. Obviously, such news still interests me, and I read them because I oversaw the development of some of these players," said Choong Hann.
"I can see that Tze Yong is very committed, focused, and working very hard to become a better player. In fact, we still catch up during tournaments."
