Badminton: Tan Kim Her resigns as India’s doubles coach

India’s doubles coach Tan Kim Her has resigned citing personal reasons 18 months before his tenure was to end at the Tokyo Olympics.

While the reason for his resignation is not clear yet, sources in Badminton Association of India say that the coach has resigned as he received a better offer from some other country and wanted to move on. Kim Her also wanted an extension till 2024 which was not possible at this time.

The 47-year-old Malaysian, who came to India in 2015, was contracted till 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was entrusted with the responsibility of helping at least one Indian doubles combination finish on the podium in the Japanese capital.

Even Indonesia’s singles coach Mulyo Handoyo had left abruptly last year citing personal reasons. The Indian team has now hired two Korean coach coaches Kim Ji Hyun and Park Tae Sang to work with the singles players.

Chief national coach Pullela Gopichand confirmed Kim Her’s resignation but refused to speculate about the reasons behind the Malaysian’s decision to quit before his contract expired.

Kim Her’s biggest success during his four year’s stint was the emergence of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, who won a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and are currently ranked 20 in the world.

The Indian doubles squad had a very successful outing in the Commonwealth Games with Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy also winning the women’s doubles bronze.

It is not clear whether Kim Her’s decision had anything to do with the arrival of two new doubles coaches – Flandy Limpele and Namrih Suroto – from Indonesia. While Suroto has already joined, Limpele is expected to reach India later this month.

BAI had insisted that the new coaches would be working on creating a second string of Indian doubles players while Kim Her would be concentrating on the five-six pairs who had a chance of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics.

Messages and calls to Tan Kim Her went unanswered.