The 2022 Gen.T honouree has achieved a new career high after rising once again in the world rankings just one month after he climbed to fifth place
In early November 2021, Singapore badminton player Loh Kean Yew ranked 39th in the world. Now, about a year later, he is third, according to the latest Badminton World Federation (BWF) world rankings on Tuesday.
This is a career-high for Loh, who is a 2022 Gen.T honouree, and also the first time a Singapore men’s badminton player has ever ranked in the top three. The only other Singapore player to achieve the same ranking is Zarinah Abdullah, the country’s first professional female badminton player and a two-time Olympian, back in 1994.
Loh’s latest ascend in the global rankings came after he competed at Germany’s Hylo Open, where he got into the quarter-finals before being eliminated by Anthony Ginting of Indonesia.
Here are a few more interesting facts about the young athlete.
1. A Malaysian by birth
Loh was born in Penang, Malaysia, before he moved to Singapore on scholarship with the Singapore Sports School after being noticed for his badminton skills.
He played his first international game for Singapore in 2015, where he represented the country at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. There, he took home the bronze medal after being eliminated by Malaysia’s Mohamad Arif Abdul Latif in the men’s singles semi-finals. He also won bronze when he participated in the SEA Games in 2017 and 2019.