BWF MALAYSIA MASTERS 2024: LOH KEAN YEW SUFFERS FIRST-ROUND ELIMINATION AGAIN, AXELSEN AND LEE THROUGH
Loh Kean Yew's rough patch of form continued on Wednesday (22 May) at badminton's Malaysia Masters 2024 as the 2021 world champion suffered yet another first-round exit.
The Singaporean has now been eliminated at the round of 32 in four of his last five men's singles events, with the exception coming at the Madrid Spain Masters which he won in late March.
In Kuala Lumpur, he fell to Chinese Taipei's Wang Tzu-wei for the second week running, having been eliminated by the same opponent last Wednesday at the Thailand Open too.
This time, Loh put up more of a fight, but still found himself on the wrong side of a tough third game, with Wang eventually winning 22-20, 9-21, 21-18.
The later rounds of the Malaysia Masters will be available to watch live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the official Olympics mobile app, subject to territorial restrictions applying.
Meanwhile, top seed and world number one Viktor Axelsen marked his return to the BWF World Tour with an opening win.
The Dane has not competed on the circuit since a quarter-final defeat at the All England Open in mid-March, although he did play at – and win – the European Championships in April.
Axelsen took 39 minutes to deliver a straight-games win over Japanese opponent Watanabe Koki 21-14, 21-11.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, fifth-seeded home hope Lee Zii Jia needed three games but eventually overcame Zhao Junpeng in the first round.
A close opening game went the way of Lee's Chinese opponent, but buoyed by the Malaysian fans, Lee imposed his stamp on the second and third games, with Zhao never finding a foothold in them.
Lee closed out the win 19-21, 21-11, 21-14 in 61 minutes.
He next plays India's Kiran George.
Goh, Z. (2024b, May 22). BWF Malaysia Masters 2024: Loh Kean Yew suffers first-round elimination again, Axelsen and Lee through. Olympics.com. https://olympics.com/en/news/bwf-malaysia-masters-2024-first-round-results