BWF Arctic Open 2024: Lee Zii Jia through to last 16 but Anthony Ginting crashes out

Malaysia's badminton world number four Lee Zii Jia is safely into the second round at the BWF Arctic Open 2024 in Vantaa, Finland, after a hard-fought win in his opener on Wednesday (9 October).

Lee, the third seed in Vantaa and the tournament's defending champion in men's singles, faced France's Christo Popov and won convincingly in straight games.

The 26-year-old bounced back from his recent early exits from the Japan and China Opens in style, taking down Popov 21-15, 21-11 in 43 minutes and barely letting his French opponent have a sniff of the lead – the only time Popov was ahead in either game was at 1–0 in the second.

It means the Malaysian progresses to face Japan's Tanaka Yushi, who beat People's Republic of China's Lei Lanxi in three games.

The Arctic Open is available to watch live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the official Olympics app for mobile devices from the quarter-finals onwards (territorial restrictions may apply).

Lee's path through to the semi-finals appears to have opened up after Indonesia's eighth seed Anthony Sinisuka Ginting went out in the same quarter.

Ginting lost a three-game thriller to Lu Guangzu, didn't look completely comfortable.

He fell behind early to his Chinese opponent in the first game before staging a late rally to narrowly take it 21-19.

In the second, it seemed like Ginting may have found his footing, enjoying the better of the second game and even running out to a 10-point lead. But he let Lu back into the contest and saw the world number 17 take it 25-23.

And while the Indonesian started the deciding game brightly, he was pegged back to 11-11 before Lu dominated the latter half of the decider to eventually run out a 19-21, 25-23, 21-16 winner.