Despite upsetting Lin Dan, S’pore shuttler Loh Kean Yew says he’s ‘not there yet’

SINGAPORE — When national shuttler Loh Kean Yew was seven years old, he decided to join his older brother’s friends in a game of badminton, only to receive constant ribbing from them.

“No one wanted to care about me, but I was still thick-skinned, so I went in to play. They played with me and laughed at me. I was sad and didn’t want to play anymore,” the 21-year-old recounted.

This hiatus lasted a whole two years before he began following his older brother, Kean Hean, 23, to training at a badminton academy in their Malaysian hometown of Penang. When his brother’s team-mates asked him jokingly when his turn to train was, Kean Yew finally decided to bite the bullet.

At 13 years old, he followed his brother again across the Causeway, this time to Singapore, on their parents’ wishes — for them to study and play badminton here. The two had come a long way from the days when they used the front gate of their house as a net.

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Now, the younger brother has made a name for himself. Just over a week ago, he stunned two-time Olympic gold medallist Lin Dan in the Thailand Masters final, beating him 21-19, 21-18 to clinch the title.

The victory made headlines on the international circuit and caused his world ranking to rocket 48 places to 77th. But to him, life has not changed that much.

In an interview with TODAY on Wednesday (Jan 23), he said matter-of-factly: “People expect more from me, but Lin Dan is just one of them. There’re still many more players and many higher levels of competition.

“I think there’s still a long way to go... it’s normal to expect more from me, but I shouldn’t be caring so much about that. I know I’m not there yet so people shouldn’t expect so much from me, and I’m not expecting anything from myself.” 

While veterans such as two-time Olympian Derek Wong have retired, Kean Yew said that the Singapore badminton scene is “now coming up to the standards”.

“Grooming young players is a good foundation. We all start young. It’ll be good if there’s a senior to guide us, like Derek last time… but having all the young players is a good thing. We can all motivate each other and all start together,” he said.

Fresh off his shock win, the young shuttler wants more silverware for his collection. He has three bronze medals from the South-east Asian (SEA) Games — one singles, two team — and is gunning for more later this year in the Philippines, where the 30th SEA Games will be held.

“I want to be able to win and hopefully get more than bronze. I have a few but don’t have other colours,” he joked.

Beyond that, Kean Yew is looking to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It will be his first time there if he succeeds, and he is setting a lofty goal for himself, something that Singapore has not achieved so far — to win an Olympic medal in badminton.

But first, there is the Singapore National Open Championships this weekend, and then the Singapore Open in April.

“I’ll be able to play on home ground, so hopefully I can perform well and give the home crowd a good show,” he said.

JOURNEY FROM MALAYSIA TO SINGAPORE

His older brother arrived in Singapore a year before him and studied at Montfort Secondary School. While visiting him here, Kean Yew caught the eye of a Singapore Sports School coach and was offered a foreign sports scholarship to come to Singapore to train.

In the wake of his win over “Super Dan”, Malaysians and Singaporeans alike have sparred over who “owns” him. But he is not fazed by that — both countries have played a big part in his career, he said.

“Some people say Singapore bought us over, some people say Malaysia kicked us over, but to us, that’s not the case. My parents wanted us to come here to study and play badminton. It’s more the players and parents’ choices,” he added. “We’re here to better the sport.”

Ultimately, the Singapore Sports School alumnus did well enough in competitions to be invited to the national team with his brother. The two now live together in a rented room in the north-eastern part of Singapore.

“Folding clothes and everything, usually we’ll fight about it because we will both be lazy and tired. When I was doing National Service (NS), he tried to help. Now he’s in NS, I try to help... I do all the things, he won’t admit it anyway,” Kean Yew said with a laugh.

During his time in NS, where he served as a driver, Kean Yew could train only on Saturdays. Life got a little easier when he went on course for three months and could train at night.

“It was a big problem, but luckily the coach who helped me would fetch me home after training. I needed to wake up at 5am and could only fall out at 6pm, so I would just take a taxi to training. NS pay is not a lot and I still had to pay rent, so it was really very ‘chor’ (Hokkien for ‘tiring’),” he said.

Still, he finds time to go back to Penang to visit his parents and two other older brothers once or twice a year.

When asked what he does there, he beamed and said: “I like to eat. All the local stuff and delicacies — char kway teow, laksa, curry mee, ice kacang...”

On that note, he sought to dispel rumours that he can make sushi, as his ActiveSG profile claims.

“I only did it one time. They asked us to write the biography and asked us for any interesting facts. I remembered that I made sushi the day before, so I just put that in. Then I wanted to change it but I’ve not been able to!” he said.