9 Things To Know About Malaysia's 23-Year-Old Badminton Hero Lee Zii Jia

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Lee won against Axelsen from Denmark in a nail-biting best-of-three on 21 March – the victory being a comeback for Lee after he lost to Axelsen only two months before in the BWF World Tour Finals.

Impressively, the 23-year-old also defeated world number one, Kento Momota from Japan, in straight sets in the quarter finals and Dutch player Mark Caljouw in the semis to earn the title.

A true-blue Malaysian, Lee was born on 29 March 1998 in Alor Setar.

He attended SJK(C) Keat Hwa (H) and even in primary school, Lee already showed great talent for badminton.

On his Badminton World Federation (BWF) profile, Lee said his dad first brought him to a badminton club in Kedah and soon he fell in love with the game.

"I started playing just for health reasons before [getting] better and better," he said.

Not before long, due to his outstanding performance in local tournaments, he was scouted and offered a place at Bukit Jalil Sports School, where he started to train and compete professionally.

And he has continued to improve. According to New Straits Times, in 2015, at the age of 17, he became the junior champion in the Perak and Selangor Badminton Opens.

The next year, he made his international debut at the Belgium International Challenge 2016 and has since been competing at the international level.

Lee has been trained by various Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) head coaches over the years, including former national badminton champions Datuk Misbun Sidek and Datuk Tey Seu Bock, as well as former Indonesian badminton champion, Hendrawan.

In an interview with The Star, Lee revealed that his mother, Leow Siet Peng, had represented Malaysia in two SEA Games in her prime, while his father, Lee Chee Hin, was the best national player at the age of 16 but was forced to give up the sport due to a knee injury.

Both his parents are currently coaching basketball at SMJK Keat Hwa in Alor Setar.

He told The Star that he often plays basketball during the badminton off-season to stay fit, and trains with his parents at the secondary school back in Alor Setar.

His favourite NBA basketball team is the Los Angeles Lakers, while his favourite players are LeBron James and the late Kobe Bryant.

Lee is the first Malaysian to bag the title after Lee Chong Wei last did so in 2017.

He joins only a handful of other Malaysian shuttlers who have won the BWF Tour Super 1000 tournament title, including Wong Peng Soon (1950, 1951, 1952, 1955), Datuk Eddy Choong (1953, 1954, 1956, 1957), Tan Aik Huang (1966), Muhammad Hafiz Hashim (2003), and Lee Chong Wei (2010, 2011, 2014, 2017).

In November 2016, at the age of 18, Lee bagged a bronze and silver medal in the BWF World Junior Championships for boys' singles and mixed team categories, respectively.

This was followed by a silver for men's team category at the 2017 SEA Games and a bronze for the same category at the 2018 Badminton Asia Team Championships.

More recently, he proudly snagged a gold and silver at the 2019 SEA Games for the coveted men's singles and the men's team categories respectively, and a silver for the men's team category at the 2020 Badminton Asia Team Championships.

Lee is currently the only Malaysian shuttler in the top 10 of the BWF World Rankings.

As of 24 March 2021, he has played in 25 tournaments and won 166 out of 243 games.

Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a shining career, as like so many other local athletes, Lee is driven by the Olympic dream and hopes to one day bring back a gold for Malaysia.