Three men’s singles contenders in the upper half of the draw – top seed Anders Antonsen, fifth seed Prannoy H. S. and sixth seed Loh Kean Yew – all exited the TOYOTA Thailand Open 2024 in the first round today.

Prannoy’s straight games loss to Meiraba Luwang Maisnam was the biggest shock; his opponent who got through qualification rounds had never won an HSBC BWF World Tour match.

“I approached it like any other duel and (for some reason) I was feeling more confident than usual. I’m excited for the next battle,” Maisnam, who looked unfazed throughout the 21-19 21-18 win despite playing an Olympic-bound countryman for the maiden time, said.

“If I keep training the way I train, I could play way better than this,” added the 21-year-old world No.84.

Meanwhile, Ng Ka Long Angus finally bested Antonsen after losing all four previous encounters. The Hong Kong China shuttler took advantage of Antonsen’s growing frustrations caused by his error-prone display to seal the 21-18 14-21 21-15 victory in 75 minutes. It marked Ng’s first win over a seed since overcoming Lee Zii Jia at the Korea Open in July.

“I’m really satisfied because this is the first time I beat him,” said Ng, runner-up of the YONEX Thailand Open 2020. “Also, I’ve waited long for a win over a seeded player so it’s a meaningful result.

“I was very poor against him at the Thomas Cup. I totally lost the net game but I learned from that experience. This time I was really focused and tried to be more aggressive at the net. I hardly made mistakes in the decider.”

Singapore’s Loh was the first to fall, his 21-15 21-13 defeat ending a run of four successive victories dating back to 2019 over Wang Tzu Wei.

“All my losses were in three games so they were close matches. It was important I didn’t let him move me around much. I had more time to react to his shots,” said Wang.

→ Results (Day 2)

→ Order of play (Day 3)

WHAT OTHERS SAID:

“I came into this tournament with my confidence boosted from my performance at the Uber Cup. It helped today.” – Sim Yu Jin, who aced four of her five assignments in Chengdu, after knocking out fifth seed Zhang Yi Man

“We let them dictate the first game but we changed our strategy in the second. Also, there was less pressure on us because as seeds they were expected to win.” – Junaidi Arif after he and Yap King Roy saw off sixth-seeded Lu Ching Yao/Yang Po Han