Wong and Santoso join New Year’s international coaches’ shuffle

Agus Dwi Santoso and Wong Tat Meng both found new countries in which to apply their expertise for the start of 2019 as Thailand and Korea are among those gearing up for the Olympic qualifying period with new coaches.

Photos: Badmintonphoto

Late last year it became clear that two international coaches would become free agents.  In December, Badminton Scotland revealed that Malaysian Wong Tat would be stepping down after two years as their national team’s head coach and in Korea, of course, the entire coaching staff was sacked, with only one of the seven being hired back for the new year, leaving Indonesian Agus Dwi Santoso among those in the market for a new home.

The Thai media reported earlier this month that the Badminton Association of Thailand (BAT) had hired Agus Dwi Santoso to join their staff and the Indonesian was busy from the get-go, in the coach’s chair behind Busanan Ongbamrungphan (pictured left) in her bid for a second Thailand Masters title last week.  Santoso joins compatriot Rexy Mainaky, who has held the head coaching position for BAT since 2017.

Last week, the Badminton Korea Association (BKA) added Wong Tat Meng (pictured right, with Scotland’s Kirsty Gilmour) to a coaching roster heavy with singles specialists.  Korea has a tradition of looking overseas for singles coaches.  Before Santoso was his countryman Indra Wijaya and before them were Li Mao and Chen Kang of China.  The last Malaysian to work for the BKA was actually Tan Kim Her, one of the rare international coaches to take charge of Korea’s doubles players.

Wong is one of two singles coaches the BKA just recently hired, along with Jung Sung Hun, who has been a middle and high school coach in Ulsan for many years, coaching the likes of Kim Ga Eun, Kim Hyo Min, and Lee So Hee in their youth.  Another new colleague, Jang Young Soo, is a former singles player who for several years has been coaching a pro team in Gimcheon that is mostly doubles specialists.  In addition, their boss, new Head Coach Ahn Jae Chang, was himself a singles player and as a teenager played against Wong Tat Meng in the Asian Championships.