Loh Kean Yew crashed out of BWF World Tour Finals group stage

Singapore top shuttler and world number three Loh Kean Yew’s debut at the Badminton World Federation World Tour Finals ended in a defeat to Indonesia’s Anthony Sinisuka Ginting 12-21, 21-23 in his final men’s singles Group B match on Friday at the Nimibutr Arena in Bangkok, Thailand.

Loh had a promising start to the tournament as he comfortably won against world number four Chou Tien-chen from Chinese Taipei 21-15, 21-17 in his opening match on Wednesday.

A day later, he took on fifth ranked player Jonatan Christie from Indonesia. Loh won the first set 21-16, but failed to capitalised in the second set when he held on to two match points at 20-18. Christie regained his composure and bravely fought back to win four straight consecutive points to win the set 22-20 and level the tie, and going on to win the deciding set 21-10.

“I don’t think I played well. For this year it is the end, so I will take a break and start again next year. This year has been playing at high level almost in all the tournaments. It is something that I need to get used to it,” said Loh in an interview with SPOTV after his match against Ginting.

“So far, the best I did was that one semi and quarters for a high-tiered level event. I need to overcome that, how do I play further for both tournaments back to back.”

With one win and two losses, Loh finished the campaign in third place in Group B, ahead of Tien-chen. Ginting topped the group, while his Indonesia counterpart Christie is in second place. Group A saw world number one player Viktor Axelsen of Denmark and Kodai Naraoka (no 14) finish the group stage in first and second place respectively.

The top two from each group advance to the semi-finals which will be played on Saturday. The draw that took place on Friday saw no surprises as shuttlers from the same group will take on each other in the semis. There will be an Indonesian representative in the final as Ginting will be up against Christie, while the other final four match will see Axelsen face off with Naraoka.