Tan Boon Heong

TAN Boon Heong (, born 18 September 1987) is a former World No.1 Malaysian professional badminton player in the men's doubles event.

TAN was previously paired with Hoon Thien How, with whom he won the World Junior Championships in 2004 and a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Badminton Championships.

Nearing the Doha Asian Games in 2006, Rexy Mainaky (the Malaysian doubles coach) decided to split them up and partner TAN Boon Heong with Koo Kien Keat instead.

This move, nevertheless, proved to be spot-on as this pair went on to become the Asian Games champion, winning the gold medal in their maiden outing by defeating the then Chinese world champions, Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, in the quarterfinals, Indonesia's Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan in the semifinals, and finally Luluk Hadiyanto and Alvent Yulianto, also from Indonesia, in the finals.

They are the youngest men's doubles to win gold medal at Asian Games at the age of 21 and 19 respectively.

2007 was the best year for Koo and TAN.

They became the first qualifiers to win the Superseries at the Malaysian Open.

They also became the World No.1 that year.

They won their first All England Open after beating Chinese pair, Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng in straight games.

They competed at the 2008 Olympics, reaching the quarter-finals.

At the Japan Open, TAN set the world record for badminton smashes at 421 km/h.

This was done under lab conditions and recorded by Yonex representatives, and not in an official match.

Later, he and Koo Kien Keat won the bronze medal at the 2009 World Championships.

At the 2010 BWF World Championships, TAN and partner Koo Kien Keat launched themselves into the semifinals after beating Korean rivals Lee Yong-dae and Jung Jae-sung.

In the semifinals they defeated China's Guo Zhendong and Xu Chen 21–14, 21–18.

TAN Boon Heong and Koo Kien Keat were the first Malaysian pair to enter a World Championships final in 13 years.

In the finals, they played China's Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng and lost 21–18, 18–21, 14–21.

The year 2010 was the last time Koo and TAN ranked World No. 1.

At the 2011 All England Open, TAN and Koo defeated 2008 Olympic champions Markis Kido and Hendra Setiawan in the quarterfinals.

They then defeated World champions Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng 21–11, 23–21.

They lost to Danes and world no.1 Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen 21–15, 18–21, 18–21.

In doing so, they failed to win their second All England Open title.

TAN competed at the 2012 Olympics with Koo Kien Keat, reaching the semi-finals, and losing 0–2 in the bronze medal match to the Koreans.

TAN and Koo suffered a lot of early round exits in 2013 and a three-year major title drought but they managed to remain in the top 5 of the world ranking.

As of March 2014, following the resignation of his partner, Koo Kien Keat, which was due to their deteriorating performance, TAN was scratch partnered with several men's doubles players including Goh V Shem, Ow Yao Han, Hoon Thien How and TAN-wee-kiong">TAN Wee Kiong.

Following the tournament, TAN has been officially re-partnered with Hoon Thien How.

In August that year, Koo returned to play his last tournament with TAN at the 2014 BWF World Championships.

Their last match together was in the third round where they lost to a Chinese Taipei pair with a score of 19–21 in the deciding game.

In early 2015, TAN announced his resignation from the Badminton Association of Malaysia.

Koo and TAN announced that they are coming out of retirement and try to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics before they call it quits for good.

They are currently sponsored by Seri Mutiara Development Sdn Bhd.

They have achieved some breakthroughs this year.

Winning the Dutch Open and runners-up in the Thailand Open.

They have also made it to 2 Superseries quarterfinals in Australia and Korea.

In 2016, Koo and TAN managed to enter the top 15 of the world rankings.

However, due to the new Olympic qualification requirement set by the BWF whereby each country can send two representatives for each event only if they are both in the top 8 of the world rankings in their discipline and if they are not then only the highest ranked representative will contest, Koo and TAN narrowly failed to qualify for the Olympics.

TAN and Hendra Setiawan debut tournament at the 2017 Syed Modi International, they managed to advance until the quarter-finals.

They reached the final round at the Australian Open but were beaten by third seed Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda from Japan.

TAN was partner with Yoo Yeon Seong from South Korea.

Subsequently, he was partner with Kim Sa Rang and they play together in men's doubles in 18/19 Purple League.