KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 24 — Malaysian professional men’s singles ace Lee Zii Jia has set his sights on overtaking two-time world champion Kento Momota of Japan by taking the second spot of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) world rankings by the end of this year.

As such, the 2021 All England champion has vowed to collect as many points as possible from the remaining tournaments this year in a bid to go up two rungs from his current fourth world ranking.

"Aiming for ranking number two by end of this year,” he told reporters after a training session here, today.

Zii Jia is set to compete in three back-to-back European tournaments starting from the Denmark Open and French Open next month followed by the Hylo Open in Germany, in November.

The reigning Asian champion said that he is currently working on improving his performance and hopes to regain his confidence in all three Europe outings following his dismal show at the World Championships and Japan Open recently.

"I am determined to chase back my points from this Europe tour. I have learnt from my mistakes and will bring back my best performance for the next tournaments,” he added.

Last month, Zii Jia crashed out from the third round of the World Championships as he went down to China’s Zhao Jun Peng, 19-21, 21-11, 19-21 before the Malaysian suffered another blow as he lost to Kidambi Srikanth from India, 20-22, 21-23 in the opening round of the Japan Open. ― Bernama