I'm going in the right direction

The sense of frustration was apparent after letting two game points slip away and while his game is showing signs of improvement, it is neither sufficient or fast enough for Loh Kean Yew.

The reigning world champion was seeking to add the Asian title to his resume at the Badminton Asia Championships after first-round exits in 2016 and 2019, but his challenge was ended yesterday after losing a tense and tight quarter-final to Jonatan Christie 22-20, 23-21 in 47 minutes.

This was the 24-year-old Singaporean's fifth straight loss to the 2018 Asian Games gold medallist Christie.

The Indonesian, who is two places above Loh in the world rankings at No. 8, also beat Loh at last year's Tokyo Olympics group stage, stopping him from reaching the knockout round.

Christie faces unseeded compatriot Chico Aura Dwi Wardoyo in today's semi-final while the other half sees Malaysian Lee Zii Jia take on Weng Hongyang of China.

In the women's draw, defending champion and top seed Akane Yamaguchi of Japan meets former world champion P. V. Sindhu. The Indian has the edge however, having beaten the current world champion in 13 of their 21 previous meetings. In the other last-four clash, South Korean An Se-young faces Chinese Wang Zhiyi.

Loh, who was named yesterday as The Straits Times Athlete of the Year 2021, can at least take heart from his progress into the last eight at Muntinlupa Sports Complex in Manila.

In his previous two tournaments, the All-England Open and the German Open both held in March, he suffered first-round defeats. He then withdrew from the Swiss Open earlier this month after testing positive for Covid-19.

He told The Straits Times after his match yesterday: "From first round till quarters, I think I performed better as I played more. As always, I still need to work a lot on my consistency.

"My score with Christie is always quite close but I'm always the one losing the match. Something needs to change.

"The result is quarters this time, but I've been focusing more on the process and I see improvements this time and I'm happy that it's going in the right direction."

On what he hoped to improve, he said: "I need to work on making fewer mistakes. There is not a lot of time to prepare as the Thomas Cup is next, and I will try to maintain condition as much as possible."

After the May 8-15 Thomas Cup in Bangkok, he has his sights set on the men's singles gold at the Hanoi SEA Games.

He then has the July 28-Aug 8 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, before his title defence at the World Championships in Tokyo in late August and then the Asian Games in Hangzhou a month later.

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ASIA CHAMPIONSHIPS