Badminton: Loh Kean Yew loses to France's Christo Popov in Singapore Open quarter-finals
The world number 23 Popov took the match 21-10, 21-14 to advance to the semi-finals.
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SINGAPORE: Loh Kean Yew's run at the Singapore Open ended on Friday (May 30) as he lost in an upset to France's Christo Popov in the men's singles quarter-finals.
The world number 23 Popov took the match 21-10, 21-14 to advance to the last four, where he will face China's Lu Guangzu.
The victory means that Popov has now won three of the six meetings against Loh. He had also beaten Loh at the 2023 edition of the tournament in the round of 16.
Up against his third consecutive French opponent, world number 10 Loh struggled to find any rhythm in the first game and went behind 8-11 at the interval.
Loh had beaten Popov's older brother and doubles partner Toma the day before, but he simply had no answer to the younger Popov, who never relinquished his lead.
While Loh took an early lead in the second game, his opponent took control just before the interval and saw the game out to silence the home crowd.
Speaking to reporters after the clash, Loh said that he had "played badly" but also gave credit to Popov.
"Yesterday was a miracle, but miracles don't happen every day ... I tried everything that I could possibly try to do, but he just played a very good game. It was hard to play against him," said Loh.
"To start with, of course he played very well and it was very hard to play against him ... Through that (my) confidence dropped while his confidence level went up."
At the same time, the Singaporean, who had survived two three-game contests on Wednesday and Thursday, refused to use tiredness as an excuse, pointing out that Popov had competed in both the doubles and singles events.
The Popov brothers were eliminated in the doubles on Thursday night after a 59-minute defeat to Kim Won Ho and Seo Seung Jae.
"Physically, there are no excuses there. He just played very well today," said Loh.
Loh was the only Singaporean representative left in the competition after compatriot Yeo Jia Min was eliminated by world number 1 An Se-young in the round of 16 on Thursday.
"There are a lot of things to continue to work on," said the former world champion. "I need to go back and reflect (on things) again to see what we need to work on together with (the) coach."
