Huelva: Singapore’s World No. 22 Loh Kean Yew ended World No. 3 Anders Antonsen’s run of dominance at the 2021 BWF World Championships with a straight-set win in the semi-final on Saturday that lasted 61 minutes.
The semi-final match between Loh and Antonsen entertained the crowd with some superb exchanges at the end of the first game when Antonsen came back from 15-20 down to tie the game at 20-20 before Loh held his nerve to fight off a spirited challenge from Antonsen and to score the game point after Antonsen failed to return a tight net shot from Loh. The Singaporean took the first game 23-21.
Loh was ready for the threat from Antonsen in the second set and using his attacks and defense, Loh neutralized Antonsen’s fast strokes to clinch the second game 21-14.
The victory saw Loh making history of becoming the first Singaporean men’s singles player to ever advance into the final of the World Championships.
“I am definitely feeling happy right now. As usual, I need to calm myself down and to stay focused,” said Loh after the match.
“The battle is not over, I still need to focus on the next game tomorrow, and hopefully I can perform my best,” added Loh.
“In the first game, I was trying to slow down a little bit and calm myself down. However, I slowed down too much, and he picked up the pace, and it wasn’t easy to turn the table against Antonsen,” Loh talked about how he squandered 6 game-point and almost lost the first game to the Dane.
“I grew up watching Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan, maybe I am mixing some of their playing styles into mine,” explained Loh.
Meanwhile, Antonsen also praised Loh for being able to win the World’s semi-final.
“He is extremely fast. One of the fastest players that I ever played against. Very fast in his attack and very fast in his defense as well,” said Antonsen.
“He was playing like a guy who has a lot of confident, he was flying out there, and he played a very good match,” added Antonsen.
Loh will play World No. 14 Kidambi Srikanth of India in the final.
In men’s doubles, even though Malaysia’s Ong Yew Sin/Teo Ee Yi lost to Takuro Hoki/Yugo Kobayashi in the semi-final, 13-21, 9-21, but they were able to end Malaysia’s 11-year wait in the World Championships men’s doubles category by bringing back a bronze medal to their country.
Koo Kien Keat/Tan Boon Heong of Malaysia finished with the silver medal after losing to Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng of China in the 2010 World Championships final.
Hoki/Kobayashi will play He Ji Ting/Tan Qiang of China in the final. He/Tan defeated Kim Astrup/Anders Skaarup Rasmussen of Denmark 21-16, 13-21, 21-15 on Saturday.
