KUALA LUMPUR: One phone call from national coaching director Rexy Mainaky was enough to convince Kenneth Jonassen to join the BA of Malaysia (BAM).
For Jonassen, the conversation with Rexy in late September led to him moving from Europe to Malaysia after having been involved in coaching with Badminton Denmark for 13 years.
Following Rexy's convincing words, Jonassen made his major career move to be Malaysia's national singles head coach.
And he said one of his missions is to elevate the standard of Malaysia's women's singles shuttlers.
Top coaches mostly shy away from women's singles as it is deemed as non-glamorous, but Jonassen has made an impact during his stint as the head coach of Denmark.
Under Jonassen, Line Kjaersfeldt qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics and Mia Blichfeldt competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the recent Paris Olympics. Line Christopherson was a runner-up at the 2021 European Championships.
While Jonassen's priority is to help Malaysia's men's singles players win gold at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, he has promised that he will do everything possible to raise the level of the young and inexperienced national women's shuttlers.
"The one phone call from Rexy started everything and I realised it was possibly the time that I needed a new challenge. And one of the interesting challenges for me here is to instill belief and hope that it is possible for Malaysia's women's singles players to reach the highest level and be competitive," said Jonassen.
"Compared to the men's singles, their results are not at the same level. Firstly, we have to see if the girls are able to take the training on a day-to-day basis.
"The intensity may vary but the girls' desire within them will be key to reaching their goals.
"I understand that many of the girls are young. So, they have the future ahead of them but it will of course take time."
Jonassen said that he normally doesn't do much court work for the women's singles but engages in a lot of talk to raise their confidence and morale during his tenure as Denmark coach.
"My primary role with the girls has been engaging them by giving talks, and not actually standing on court with them as I was in charge of the men's singles there (in Denmark)," recalled Jonassen.
"But those girls started relatively very young with the Danish team and the situation is similar here. We have to let them know we believe in them and give them the opportunity.
"One of the objectives is to get them to compete against the top players because everyone needs to play at the highest level to understand why it is important to put in the hard work.
"The gap is currently too far but we have to work and get them to push physically and mentally to gradually get there."
The current national women's players are world No. 55 K. Letshanaa, Siti Zulaikha Azmi (No. 127) and Oo Shan Zi (No. 222). Juniors like Ong Xin Yee and Dania Sofea Zaid could be the ones Jonassen can consider to bolster the squad.