SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): Loh Kean Yew’s quest for his first KFF Singapore Badminton Open title came to a heartbreaking end at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on May 31, when he lost 17-21, 21-15, 21-14 to ninth-ranked Frenchman Alex Lanier in the men’s singles final.
The world No. 14 was bidding to become the first local player to win at the tournament since 2010 women’s doubles champions Shinta Mulia Sari and Yao Lei.
He was the first Singaporean to reach the men’s singles final since Ronald Susilo in 2002, but could not match Wee Choon Seng’s 1962 feat of claiming the coveted crown.
En route to the final of the US$1 million (S$1.28 million) tournament, Loh required three games to beat each of India’s 37th-ranked Srikanth Kidambi and 35th-ranked H.S. Prannoy, 18th-ranked Taiwanese Chi Yu-jen, and Japan’s world No. 19 Koki Watanabe.
Despite the backing of a 7,880-strong crowd at the indoor stadium on May 31, Loh could not overcome the final hurdle against Lanier, losing in three sets to the 2025 European champion.
Nevertheless, he pocketed US$34,000 to take his career earnings past the million-dollar mark when combined with his US$378,474 in career prize money and S$495,000 from monetary rewards and public donations after his historic 2021 world championship win.
Loh will next feature in the June 2-7 Indonesia Open, a Super 1000 event, in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, India’s Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won the men’s doubles title at the Singapore Badminton Open 2026 on Sunday to finally end their two-year-long title drought on the BWF World Tour, as reported by Olympics.com.
Satwik-Chirag, currently fourth in the men’s doubles badminton rankings, beat the world No. 3 Indonesian pair of Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Shohibul Fikri by an 18-21, 21-17, 21-16 scoreline in the final, which lasted 73 minutes.
This was Satwik and Chirag’s first title on Tour since the 2024 Thailand Open, which was also held in May two years back.
The Indian badminton players, who fell short in three finals in the last couple of years, including at the Thailand Open earlier this month, also became the first doubles team from the country to win the Singapore Open.
Previously, Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu and B Sai Praneeth have won the title but all of these have come in singles.
The first game saw the two teams trade leads multiple times before the Indonesians finally edged ahead at the crucial phase of play. Down 18-17, Alfian-Fikri picked up four points on the bounce to take the lead.
In the second game, there was little to differentiate the two teams in the early exchanges. However, a run of six unanswered points from the score at eight-all gave the Indian duo an upper hand.
Though the Indonesians responded almost immediately to reduce the deficit to just two points, Sat-Chi ensured they drew level in the match.
The decider saw Satwik-Chirag go into the break with a handy four-point lead but Fajar Alfian-Muhammad Fikri worked their way back into the contest and cut the deficit to just a single point at 14-13.
Sat-Chi, however, hit back to win seven of the next 11 points and converted their second match point to confirm their ninth BWF World Tour title.
The Indian duo, who beat reigning world champions Kim Won-ho and Seo Seung-jae - currently the world No. 1 team - in the semis, also levelled up their head-to-head record against Alfian and Fikri to 2-2 with Sunday’s win.
Sat-Chi’s Singapore Open triumph marked only India’s second BWF World Tour title of the year, following Devika Sihag’s women’s singles victory at the Thailand Masters Super 300.
India’s singles campaign had wrapped up in the quarter-finals with PV Sindhu losing to world No. 1 and reigning Olympic champion An Se-young in the women’s quarter-finals and Lakshya Sen going down to Koki Watanabe in the men’s draw.
