Loh Kean Yew fails to retain world championship title following quarter-final exit

Loh Kean Yew was unable to retain his Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships title in Tokyo, Japan, following a quarter-final exit.

The world championships, which took place from Aug 22 to 26, saw the 25-year-old take on Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn (ranked 16th) in the quarter finals. 

After suffering a 12-21 defeat to the Thai international in the first game, Kean Yew (ranked 8th) came back strongly in the second game to win it 21-17 and even the score 1-1.

However, he later suffered an 8-21 defeat in the third and final game to concede a 1-2 defeat to Vitidsarn.

The pair had also faced each other at the men’s singles finals in the 31st SEA Games, where Vitidsarn similarly defeated Kean Yew with a score of 2-0 to claim the Gold medal.

Kean Yew started his campaign on Aug 23 with a decisive 2-0 victory against 58th-ranked Spaniard Pablo Abian in the first round, before beating 41st-ranked Guatemalan Kevin Cordon 2-1 in the round of 32.

He later defeated Hong Kong’s Angus Ng (ranked 11th) in the round of 16 to book a spot in the quarter finals, where he eventually concluded his world championship campaign.

In the men’s doubles event, the Singaporean pair of Loh Kean Han and Terry Hee (ranked 41st) managed to make it to the round of 16, where they succumbed to a 1-2 defeat to India’s M. R. Arjun and Dhruv Kapila (ranked 36th).

Terry Hee and wife Jessica Tan similarly ended their campaign in the mixed doubles round of 16, where they suffered a 0-2 loss to Hong Kong’s 6th seeded pair of Tang Chun Man and Tse Ying Suet.

The Republic’s women’s doubles pair of Jin Yujia and Crystal Wong also saw a round of 16 exit as they fell to China’s Zhang Shu Xian and Zheng Yu with a score of 0-2.

Team Singapore’s shuttlers last featured in the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022, where they ended their campaign with a gold medal in the mixed doubles event and a bronze medal in the women’s singles event.