Lee Zii Jia‘s return to the BWF World Tour on Wednesday (5 March) was a winning one.
In his first competitive appearance since December 2024, when he picked up an injury which has ruled him out of competing in the first two months of the new badminton season, Lee had to come from behind at the 2025 Orleans Masters to earn a hard-fought victory.
The Malaysian top seed faced Chinese Taipei’s Chi Yu-Jen in Orléans, France, and dropped the opening game 17-21 to his opponent, having only led once at 2-1 up early in the game.
And he had to dig deep in both the second and third games. First, Chi and Lee traded the lead multiple times in the second and were tied at 17-17 before Lee managed to string together four straight points to force a deciding game.
In the third, Chi took an early lead and looked to be pulling away from Lee. But Zii Jia tallied six consecutive points from 8-12 down to move into the lead for the first time. While Chi levelled at 15-15, he was unable to stop Lee eventually sealing the overall victory, 17-21, 21-17, 21-17 in 56 minutes.
Meanwhile, the 2021 world champion Loh Kean Yew suffered a shock first-round exit in just 36 minutes at the hand of Ayush Shetty.
Singapore’s Loh, who had to travel from Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, on Monday after finishing runner-up at the German Open to Viktor Axelsen, lost in straight games to his world number 48 opponent.
Loh never really looked in the match as he fell to a 21-17, 21-9 defeat, and the Singaporean will immediately turn his attention to next week’s All England Open in Birmingham.
The later rounds of the Orleans Masters will be available to stream live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com and the Olympics app (territorial restrictions may apply).
