Loh Kean Yew through to Singapore Open quarters, Yeo Jia Min falls to world number 1

CNA

2 days ago

SINGAPORE: There were contrasting fortunes for Singapore's top badminton players on Thursday (May 29) as Loh Kean Yew booked his spot in the Singapore Open men's singles quarterfinals, while Yeo Jia Min exited the tournament in the round of 16.
At the Singapore Indoor Stadium, world number 10 Loh mounted a sensational comeback late on to beat France's Toma Junior Popov 21-12, 14-21, 21-18 in 65 minutes.
"I was pretty lucky at the end. I don't know what I did, but at that point of time, I just did what I did to try to win every point," said Loh.
"It was hard to control the draught today, the wind condition, the shuttle, and he was playing very well. So it was hard to play against him just now."
The win means that Loh has now triumphed over the world number 16 in all six of their meetings.
The 27-year-old looked sharp in the first game as he stormed to a 9-1 lead while his opponent struggled with errors and the drift. But the Frenchman was in control for much of the second and pushed the tie to a decider.
The match looked to have slipped out of the hands of the Singaporean as Popov built up a 16-11 lead to silence the home crowd.
"It was just fighting spirit. The crowd boosted (me) a lot, and I think it also affected him a little bit, especially at the end where they kept chanting my name," said Loh.
But Loh showed remarkable character as he dragged himself back from the brink, celebrating the win with a knee slide and pumped fists.
Loh will face his third consecutive French opponent – Popov's younger brother Christo – in the quarter-finals on Friday. The former world champion has a 3-2 head-to-head record against the 23-year-old.
Yeo, however, was not able to pull off an upset against world number 1 and defending champion An Se-young.
The 23-year-old, who won four consecutive Badminton World Federation Tour titles prior to the tournament in Singapore, took the match 21-14, 21-13 in 41 minutes.
World number 11 Yeo kept pace with the reigning women's singles Olympic and world champion early on in the first game, before the South Korean pulled away. But with An shifting into a higher gear in the second, Yeo went into the interval 6-11 behind and could not peg the top seed back.
"She was able to be quite quick on her feet, and her shots were pressuring me quite a bit," said Yeo.
"Throughout the match, I just on and off played many unforced errors which very quickly widened the gap. That gave me more pressure, because she barely made any mistakes."
Yeo saw off world number 12 Busanan Ongbamrungphan 21-14, 21-13 in the round of 32 on Tuesday.