I am in Malaysia at the moment and fortunate enough to have arranged training in two academies in Malaysia for my 13 year old girl. How does she compare? She’s just passed a selection process for hk junior squad training but I am the first to admit she still has a number of areas of the game to improve upon. She’s a good player for her age in HK. If her level were to remain static and she grew to adulthood, I would say she can be called an intermediate level player. In England, there has been quite a few players from HK who have moved there. My kids friend of exactly the same age and at the same training level when in HK, is on the border of junior gold star U15 - the limitation is the accumulation of points and grading system in England as she only moved last August. It took them about three months to get to know their own local county setup, find the right people and start to enter junior tournaments. Another 14 year old HK girl who moved earlier in 2021 to UK has played in more tournaments and accumulated enough points to get to no. 1 seedings in the gold star. There’s another 16 year old girl from who’s top of the rankings in her age group in HK. There are some younger girls who have moved over who are younger with less training experience in HK - they represent a sort of hybrid training background. So far, one of them has made a significant impact on the local scene. Judging by their experience, my kid would be at the upper gold level or maybe gold star in England. In Malaysia, my kid is able to join group training. I haven’t arranged any private lessons for her. The culture here is more on group lessons and competitions for learning. Here, my girl is placed in the intermediate level category. The other trainees in the group are mostly a bit older than her. Most of them are state junior players. The other parents tell me those considered advanced level have been picked and moved to the national training centre where they have centralised badminton and academic education. The coach at the LCW academy tells me they have subdivisions in basic and intermediate level. Given her skillset (discounting age), I would say she is lower intermediate level in Malaysia.
