Paris: The Tokyo Olympics gold medalist and last week’s Denmark Open champion – Viktor Axelsen of Denmark was not planning to seek his first French Open title which kicked off its first day of proceeding on Oct 26, withdrawing from the BWF World Tour Super 750 event on Wednesday.
The Dane decided to retire from the match after he was leading Heo Kwanghee of Korea 1-0 in the French Open first round. Axelsen then posted the message below on his social media accounts to explain the reason for his withdrawal.
“Hi All,
After playing the Denmark Open final on Sunday I’ve been trying to recover and catch up on a few minor injuries which have been causing me some pain the last few days. After consulting with my team I decided to give it a shot during my final warmup tonight. Unfortunately, I quickly felt that I’m not ready to compete this week. I’m really disappointed as I’ve been looking forward to playing here in front of the amazing French crowd, but with such a hectic tournament schedule, I have no other choice than to listen to my body. I will now put my focus on my recovery and will be looking forward on my recovery and will be looking forward to the next tournaments in Bali, Indonesia coming up soon.
Best regards,
Viktor”
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s World No. 8 Lee Zii Jia suffered a shock exit, losing to World No. 40 Singaporean Loh Kean Yew 22-24, 14-21 in the French Open first round. Lee who had previously defeated Loh at the 2016 Smiling Fish International Challenge, 2019 China Open, and also in the 2019 Southeast Asian Games final, saved two game points in the first game, but couldn’t finish the job when he was leading at 22-21 and ended up losing the game 22-24. Loh was in a strong momentum after winning the hard-fought opening set, wrapping up the match in 39 minutes.
Loh will play Lakshya Sen of India whom he defeated in the 2021 Dutch Open final on Thursday.
On Wednesday morning French local time, World No. 1 Kento Momota survived a big scare against Kidambi Srikanth of India as he came back from 17-19 in the decider to beat the Indian 21-18, 20-22, 21-19 in a battle that lasted 79 minutes.
Momota will now play World No. 12 Rasmus Gemke of Denmark in the second round.
In men’s doubles, Malaysia’s independent men’s pair, Goh V Shem/Low Juan Shen squandered a massive 20-15 advantage in the first game against compatriots and World No. 8 Aaron Chia/Soh Wooi Yik to end up losing the game 23-25. Chia/Soh went on to see off the demoralized Goh/Low 21-12 in the second game to set up a second-round match against Supak Jomkoh/Kittinupong Kedren of Thailand.
