Bali: Singapore’s World No. 26 Loh Kean Yew came from behind to send World No. 1 Kento Momota packing with a 21-7, 17-21, 21-19 win in their Indonesia Open second-round match on Thursday.
Loh took the first game in 12 minutes before Momota forced the third game by winning the second game in 28 minutes.
In the decider, Loh was trailing 6-11, 11-15, before slowing narrowing the gap and eventually won the match point when Momota missed an opportunity to kill a drop shot from Loh.
“I want to win in every match I played. Our game plan was trying to make him feel tired, because he just played in the Indonesia Masters final last Sunday, and he also had a tough match on Tuesday,” said Loh.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s men’s singles coach Kelvin Ho also commented on Loh’s victory.
“We were lucky because Momota appeared tired, which we have noticed from his performance,” said Ho.
“Even though Kean Yew had to play catch-up in the third set, but he managed to give Momota pressure at the net, and thankfully the strategy worked,” added Ho.
Loh will play Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus of Denmark on Friday.
In another men’s singles second round match, the No. 2 seed, Viktor Axelsen, delivered another command performance to withstand a resilient Kidambi Srikanth of India, beating the Indian 21-14, 21-18.
The Tokyo Olympics gold medalist will meet another Indian player, Sai B. Praneeth in the quarter-finals.
