Yeo Jia Min’s exciting run at the Badminton World Championships (BWC) was brought to an abrupt end on Friday (23) August when Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon beat the shuttler in two straight sets, 21-17, 21-11 in under an hour.
The former world champion, who was also the youngest single’s world champion at the time at only 18 years old in 2013, proved to be insurmountable for Singapore’s 20-year old who has had an historic run at Basel, Switzerland.
After her defeat, she said “I think today my movements were slower than Ratchanok’s, and my shot quality is not high enough to pressure her, so she was controlling me easily.”
Despite her defeat, the young athlete already made waves when she beat world No.1 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan who was powering through a recent injury, and Vietnam’s Vu Thi Trang to become Singapore’s first female singles shuttler to make it to the quarter-finals of the BWC.
The only other Singaporean single’s player to have done so was Ronald Susilo back in the 2007 men’s singles in Kuala Lumpur. He was eventually defeated by China’s Chen Yu.
The other Singaporean single’s shuttler the nation had eyes on was Loh Kean Yew who became the first men’s single’s player since Ronald Susilo to make it to the round of 16 after triumphing over France’s Thomas Rouxel.
Unfortunately, Loh’s journey was cut short as well when he lost his next match to Taiwan’s Chow Tien-chen, who is the world No.2, 21-13, 18-21, 21-17.
With that, Singapore comes home empty-handed from the BWC again this year as the men’s doubles and mixed double’s teams were knocked out as well, in the early stages of the competition.
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