Loh Kean Yew leads Singapore to opening win in 2023 SEA Games men's team badminton tournament
The 2021 world champion wins the opening rubber against Philippines to send Singapore into the semi-finals in Phnom Penh.
Badminton
It's a date: Singapore will play top seeds and gold medal favourites Indonesia in the semi-finals of the 32nd Southeast Asian Games men's team badminton tournament in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
That's after the men's singles world champion from 2021, Loh Kean Yew, led from the front to help his team clinch a 3–1 victory over Philippines in the opening round of the event on Monday (8 May).
Loh, lately the silver medallist at the Badminton Asia Championships, opened the tie with a straight-games 21–14 21–13 win over Jewel Angelo Albo in just 32 minutes.
"There's no such thing (as a warmup match)," Loh told Olympics.com in the mixed zone after his win. "No matter who the opponent is, I just try to focus and try to do my best to get acclimatised to the court, get used to the wind. I was pretty focused just now and I'm glad I did that."
While the Singaporeans dropped the second rubber – Loh's brother Kean Hean and doubles partner Andy Kwek losing 14–21 15–21 to Christian Bernardo and Alvin Morada – Jason Teh promptly restored the lead. Teh was untroubled by Lance Gabriel Vargas, winning 21–11 21–11.
And although Singapore's second doubles pair of Terry Hee and Nge Joo Jie fell behind early to Solomon Padiz Jr. and Julius Villabrille, Hee/Nge fought hard to eke out a tough 13–21 21–19 21–18 win for the overall victory.
With only seven teams in the men's team event, Indonesia received a bye to the semi-finals and will be rested for Wednesday's clash.
Singapore's women's team is also through to the last four after a 3–0 win over Vietnam.
They will face a strong Thailand side, which includes the doubles world number 9 pair Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai, on Wednesday.
The top players in this event will head from the Cambodian capital to Suzhou, People's Republic of China, following the team matches to compete in the BWF Sudirman Cup (world mixed team championships), leaving more inexperienced players to contest the individual events.
Loh Kean Yew said of the added complication of the Sudirman Cup: "Maybe it (SEA Games) is a warm up in the sense of playing a team event, and Sudirman is also a team event, right? So it's like a pre-event training, a simulation kind of thing, because it's a team event here then I go to the Sudirman Cup for a team event again and I'm used to it.
"So maybe at the Sudirman Cup I'll be better at coping with it, a team event – the pressure, the mentality."