Time running out for Chong Wei's World Championship hopes

IT was back in 1988 when Wong Peng Soon, the legendary badminton player, led me to the annexe of his Jalan Jarak semi-detached home at Seletar Hills Estate to prove a point.

Just minutes earlier, he told me, with a mixture of arrogance and swagger, that he was a master of the touch game in the sport.

Then 70 years old, Wong played a black-and-white recording of some of his majestic triumphs on the court as he provided a brief running commentary.

The TV screen showed the drop shots from the baseline, the cross court backhands and the deceptive lobs with his wooden racket that forced his rivals, among them Oei Teik Hock, Eddy Choong, Erland Kops and Finn Kobbero, into submission.

I did not need to be convinced for I, as a kid, had seen him play at least a half-dozen times at the Thomas Cup Finals back in 1955 at the SBA Hall in…