“We have to fork out money ourselves …” — Ronald Susilo (Part 3)

By Koh Yizhe/Red Sports

After announcing his retirement from professional badminton in March 2010, local badminton star Ronald Susilo progressed on to the next stage of his life — the opening of his own training school, the Ronald Susilo Badminton Academy.

Aside from heading an academy of his own, Ronald is also one of the coaches of the Singapore national badminton team. He also coaches the Meridian Junior College badminton team.

Red Sports recently caught up with Ronald to find out more about his new academy and his views on Singapore badminton. Here is part three of the interview.

Red Sports: I understand there is a new coach, Luan Ching, who has been hired in March. How has that been working out?
Ronald Susilo: He is very cooperative. He is willing to work with all the coaches and communicate with them, which is very important for the team. He is an All-England champion before, so he has the necessary experience.

His focus is very much on discipline. There were some players that were impolite and lacked discipline, so it is definitely a good move on his part. No doubt we only have this few number of players, but we can’t let them think they are of the highest quality. As a player, no matter what, you have to respect the coach. Even champions should respect the coach.

With the new coach there are also a few changes in terms of teamwork. Players train more together. In the long run, this would definitely help, but we wouldn’t see improvement in just one day.

Ultimately, it goes down to the players. The coach can only do so much. We might be able to just correct the technique or tell the player what they are doing wrong in the game, but the mental and stamina aspects of badminton all come from the players. I would say 70-80% comes from the players.

There’s only so much a coach can do.

Red Sports: Who are some local-born players who have shown potential to make it big?
Ronald Susilo: Derek (Wong), Ashton (Chen) are not too bad, but they have to train extra hard if they want to make it on the world stage. They have the skills and movement, but still need to work on strategies and tactics.

For these things, it is hard to teach. They will have to figure out how to become a smart player on their own.

A lot of players have dropped out due to studies and army. These things greatly hinder their training and without all these distractions, it would definitely be better for badminton.

Red Sports: Are there any areas that could be improved in order to improve the quality of badminton?
Ronald Susilo: The lifestyle of the athlete plays a part but we can’t really control that. If we have a place of our own, we could control the life of the athlete to make them better players. Now, we only do that when we have specialised training.

Things like rest, diet and lifestyle makes a big difference in the quality of the athlete and when compared to other countries, we are lacking. National players are all grown up so they choose what they want to eat and now, everybody goes home to rest.

If they want to, they have to pay to stay here (at the Sports School) — about $300-400 if there are four to a room — and $700-800 if it is one to a room. We have to fork these things out ourselves.

Red Sports: Aren’t the Singapore Badminton Association (SBA) doing anything to help?
Ronald Susilo: Currently, the budget is not as much as last time. At our previous hall, we have revenue from the spa, rental and the like, but here, we don’t have revenue and we’ve got to fork out our own money to use this place instead!

This budget constraint definitely affects the national team. Tournaments that we can participate in are reduced and we have to plan very carefully which tournaments to join due to the budget constraint. It also affects the talent pool as well.

Red Sports: How are the sponsors helping out with this budget problem?
Ronald Susilo: Li-Ning is the team sponsor right now, so when we go for the South-East Asian (SEA) Games as a team, they will sponsor us. But we are also allowed individual sponsors and certain individuals will benefit more. Some sponsors are willing to fork out money to send players for tournaments and this way, they help SBA.

Some players will get more experience than others as they have more sponsors. Which tournament they go for will be decided by the coach. The kind of tournament affects the mentality of players. Players like Derek (Wong) and Ashton (Chen) must go for smaller tournaments first and win them so they can build their confidence.

Red Sports: Is a national badminton athlete able to survive in Singapore with this budget constraint?
Ronald Susilo: The basic salary isn’t much. Of course, if you do well in tournaments, then you earn more. The Badminton Association stresses more on incentives.

Players have to really plan their spending and everything — they have no choice! SBA have a budget of their own and they can’t overspend on players. If not, the whole association might collapse! They need the reserve for any difficulty that may arise.

The Association have their own problems and players have their own problems, so we have to give and take.

I am not sure if there are plans to improve on this situation, but the government have to do something. I don’t know what they’re thinking. Badminton is a popular sport but sports like sepak takraw have their own building so why can’t we have our own!

That’s another problem. We have insufficient courts and if everyone trains together in the morning, there is definitely not enough space.

Look out for the next part where Ronald tells us more about the areas of improvement for Singapore badminton.

Part 1: “It has always been my dream to set up an academy …” — Ronald Susilo
Part 2: “You have to make a sacrifice between studies and playing badminton …” — Ronald Susilo