Lee Zii Jia (, born 29 March 1998) is a Malaysian badminton player.
2013
In doing so, he became the second Malaysian other than Lee Chong Wei to win a BWF top flight men's singles title since 2013.
Lee then reached the final of the Korea Masters but lost to Son Wan-ho.
2015
In 2015, he became the junior champion in the Perak and Selangor Badminton Open.
These standout performances and wins in the international circuit earned him a place in the Badminton Association of Malaysia.
2016
In November 2016, Lee won a bronze medal in the World Junior Championships after losing to Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo in the semifinals.
In the same month, he advanced to the final of India International Series but was defeated by Lakshya Sen.
2017
In February 2017, Lee reached the semifinals of the Thailand Masters, where he lost to Kantaphon Wangcharoen.
In September 2017, he won his first senior title at the Polish International, against Soong Joo Ven in the final.
In November 2017, Lee reached the semifinals of the Bitburger Open.
2018
In October 2018, Lee reached the final of the Chinese Taipei Open by defeating the World No. 4 men's singles player, Chou Tien-chen in the semifinals.
He defeated Riichi Takeshita in the final to win his first BWF World Tour title and second international title overall.
2019
He was the men's singles gold medalist at the 2019 SEA Games and won his first BWF Super 1000 title at the 2021 All England Open.
Lee is the 2022 men's singles Asian champion, winning the title at the 2022 Badminton Asia Championships.
Lee Zii Jia was born in Alor Setar, Kedah to Chinese Malaysians Lee Chee Hin and Leow Siet Peng, teachers and former basketball internationals.
He was first introduced to badminton by his parents at the age of 6.
In his earlier years, he studied at Keat Hwa H Primary School in Alor Setar, Kedah.
Due to his results in the under 12 competition, he was soon drafted into the Bukit Jalil Sports School.
Lee started the 2019 season by competing in the Thailand Masters.
He lost in the quarter-finals to Brice Leverdez of France in straight games.
In the next tournaments, he also finished in the quarter-finals in Malaysia Masters, Indonesia Masters, and German Open.
He later lost in the early stage of Swiss, Malaysia, and Singapore Open's.
He admitted that he had struggled to cope with financial difficulties, lack of progress and unfairness that affected his performance.
In August, Lee finally managed to make it into the semi-finals in the Thailand Open, where he lost to Chou Tien-chen of Taiwan.
This was nonetheless an improvement to his being a quarter finalist in New Zealand and Indonesia Open's.
He qualified to compete in World Championships in Basel, Switzerland, but lost to the World No. 1 men's singles player, and the eventual World Champion, Kento Momota of Japan in the quarter-finals.
In November, he was forced to retire in the second round of the China Open, and decided to withdraw as well from the next tournament in Hong Kong, due suffering from food poisoning and fever.
Lee reached world No. 11 in the BWF World ranking on 12 November.
In December, he won the men's singles gold medal at the SEA Games, and also helped the national men's team win the silver medal.
Lee opened the season by participating in Southeast Asian tours in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand Masters, with his best result being a semi-finalist in Malaysia, where he lost to the world number 1 Kento Momota in straight games.
In February, he was part of the Malaysia men's team, who won the silver medal at the Asia Team Championships, which he was the national team captain.
He won 4 out of 5 matches in the Asia Team Championships, losing the final to Anthony Sinisuka Ginting.
Later in March, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe, the German Open was cancelled.
Lee's next tournament was the All England Open, which was also his debut at the tournament because his ranking was previously too low to qualify.
He won against Jonatan Christie, who had won in four previous matches.
He continued this win streak against Lu Guangzu and the then-Olympic champion Chen Long.
In the semi-finals, he lost to Viktor Axelsen.
The match lasted for 73 minutes.
2020
Further, Lee's performance at the All England Open raised his world ranking to no. 10 on 17 March 2020.
In March, Lee won his first Super 1000 tournament at the All England Open, defeating the defending champion Viktor Axelsen by a score of 30–29, 20–22, 21–9.
