Loh Kean Yew came through a thrilling men’s singles badminton quarter-final at the India Open 2026 on Friday (16 January), beating Thailand’s Kunlavut Vitidsarn in three sets, 14-21, 21-15, 21-17.
The Singaporean will play Indonesia’s Jonatan Christie in Saturday’s semi-final after the Indonesian beat France’s Christo Popov 21-19, 21-19 earlier in the day.
Loh, the 2021 world champion, bested last week’s Malaysia Open champion and Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist Vitidsarn at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi in a tightly contested affair.
Lengthy energy-sapping rallies dominated the first game, with the 2023 world champion Vitidsarn needing just one chance to close it out.
The second game saw Loh take more initiative to edge 11-7 ahead prior to the mid-game interval, while a turning point came shortly after when Loh took a time out for medics to check an injury. Revitalised, Loh stormed to 21-15 to take the match to a decider.
Toe to toe throughout the third game, the pair smiled at each other across the net after an epic 79-shot rally in the latter stages, taking Loh into a lead of 19-16 from which Vitidsarn could not recover.