KUALA LUMPUR: Men's pair Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik will embark on a two-pronged mission when they return to action at the Malaysia Masters from May 21-26.
Firstly, they must retain their position in the world's top four to ensure seeding at the Paris Olympics.
Secondly, they are eager to secure morale-boosting wins against their major rivals ahead of the Olympics.
Aaron-Wooi Yik are in high spirits following their impressive performance at the Thomas Cup last week, where they played a pivotal role in helping Malaysia secure their first podium finish in eight years.
Featuring in the first doubles matches, Aaron-Wooi Yik secured impressive victories, notably against world No. 1 pair Wang Chang-Liang Wei Keng of China, as well as Denmark's world No. 5 Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen.
These victories significantly contributed to Aaron-Wooi Yik's ascent into the top four in the latest world ranking on Tuesday.
Their only setback came in a defeat to world No. 6 Takuro Hoki-Yugo Kobayashi, their fierce Japanese rivals whom they have now lost to seven times in a row.
However, the triumph against Wang Chang-Wei Keng was particularly noteworthy and timely despite being their only second victory in eight encounters.
Aaron-Wooi Yik will be hoping to continue doing the same against the likes of world No. 2 Kang Min Hyuk-Seo Seung Jae of South Korea, No. 3 Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty of India and No. 7 Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Rian Ardianto of Indonesia in the coming weeks.
They have not yet registered a win against any of these three pairs this year.
If all goes according to plan, Aaron-Wooi Yik will also take part in the Singapore Open, Indonesia Open and Australian Open.
"Right now, we're gradually improving but have not reached our peak yet. There's a lot of work to be done to get there," said Aaron.
"We have a few more World Tour tournaments coming up and hopefully we will get to play against the world's top pairs so that it would help us beef up our preparations for the Olympics.
"Prior to the Games, we will have about four to six weeks break from competitions, so it's paramount we take advantage of these events to sustain our momentum and tournament feeling."
Against Min Hyuk-Seung Jae, Aaron-Wooi Yik went down in all their two meetings with the reigning world champions this year, losing in the quarter-finals of the Malaysia Open in January and French Open in March.
Aaron-Wooi Yik had also suffered three successive defeats to Satwiksairaj-Chirag following their latest match at the semi-finals of the India Open in January. Interestingly, Aaron-Wooi Yik once boasted an eight-match unbeaten streak against them.
Aaron-Wooi Yik will also want to settle the score with Fajar-Rian after being pipped to the All England title in the final in March.
