Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia is the All England men’s singles champion!
The 22-year-old put on arguably the performance of his life to stun last year’s winner Viktor Axelsen in the closely-contested final, winning 30-29, 22-20, 21-9.
Photo via Astro Radio News
This is Zii Jia’s first All England crown, and comes after only his second attempt having made it as far as the semis on his tournament debut last year.
He is also expected to climb to a career-best eighth place when the new world rankings are updated this week.
Messages of congratulations have been pouring in since Zii Jia’s triumph, including from Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
The PM took to social media to hail the shuttler as a national hero, urging him to use his All England success as motivation to achieve more glory.
Tahniah Lee Zii Jia. Seluruh peminat sukan negara, khususnya badminton tentunya begitu teruja dengan kejayaan pemain...
Posted by Muhyiddin Yassin on Sunday, March 21, 2021
Meanwhile, badminton legend Datuk Lee Chong Wei also congratulated his successor for a brilliant performance and encouraged him to keep up the good work.
Incidentally, Chong Wei was the last Malaysian to win an All England title in 2017 before Zii Jia’s heroics last night.
With this, he can well and truly say that he’s finally earned his position as the nation’s top men’s singles shuttler, having taken over from Chong Wei after his retirement in 2019.
Photo via Facebook (Lee Chong Wei)
Zii Jia’s All England success is the first step on a long and undoubtedly difficult journey to becoming a legend in his own right.
It has also rekindled Malaysian’s hopes of seeing one of our own dominate world badminton once again.
With Zii Jia, a star has indeed been born. Only time will tell how brightly this star will shine.
By: Nicholas Darren John
