National women’s singles shuttler Goh Jin Wei (pic) will bide her time as she bids to rediscover her top form and return to the world’s top 30 by the end of this year.

The 20-year-old Jin Wei was sidelined for more than seven months due to a stomach ailment before making a competitive comeback at the Thailand Mas-ters a fortnight ago.

In the seven months, her ranking plummeted from 25th to a lowly 83rd.

But the two-time world junior champion took a lot of positives from her performance in Bangkok and is eager to build on it.

Jin Wei notched a convincing 21-16,21-11 win over England’s Chloe Birch to reach the main draw before losing 12-21,8-21 to world No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi in the first round.

“I must say I’m quite satisfied with things in Thailand recently, ” said Jin Wei.

“ I didn’t set myself high goals as it was only my first tournament since June last year.”

“Overall, it was very positive in Bangkok because I was able to gauge how far I have progressed. It’s through tournaments that I can assess my recovery as well as physical response to high-intensity matches.

“I had to go all out to save every single shuttle, this is something you don’t get in training.

“I know for a fact that there’s no way I can just step into the court and perform like I used to. It’s going to take some time but I’m not in a hurry.”

Jin Wei expects to take her game up by a notch when she competes in the Asian Team Championships in Manila, the Philippines, from Feb 11-16.

She is likely to play at second singles.

“In Thailand, I was playing at around 70%. I’m confident it will get better next week in Manila, ” said Jin Wei.

Now that she’s back in action, Jin Wei has set herself the modest target of breaking into the top 30 before the year end.

“Getting back into the top 30 is the ideal short-term goal for now. It’s important that I work on my rankings first, otherwise it will be tough to even enter World Tour tournaments.”

Jin Wei will swiftly get her chance to improve her rankings as head coach Datuk Tey Seu Bock plans to enter her in three tournaments in Europe next month.

Jin Wei was supposed to play in the Lingshui China Masters but the Feb 25-March 1 tournament has been postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

“Jin Wei is ranked too low to make the cut for the All-England. But we have registered her for the Swiss Open (March 17-22), Orlean Masters in France (March 24-29) and Finnish Open (April 2-5), ” said Seu Bock.

“We’re not sure about the Swiss Open but she should be able to make it to the reserve list.”