China Open 2026: Jonatan Christie Ditekuk Victor Lai

JAKARTA - The journey of the men's singles badminton, Jonatan Christie, at the 2026 China Open stopped in the quarter finals. He took his luggage from the tournament after losing two games against the Canadian representative, Victor Lai.

Jonatan, who is the fourth seed, admitted that his opponent, who is the eighth seed, with a final score of 14-21 and 17-21 at the Changzhou Olympic Sports Centre, Changzhou, China, on Friday, July 24, 2026, afternoon WIB.

"Even though I lost, this is the best I have done," said Jonatan, the 2018 Asian Games gold medalist, in an official statement from the PBSI Public Relations received by the media after the match.

This defeat added to Jonatan's bad record against the 21-year-old shuttler. From a total of two meetings in the competitive arena, they all ended in two games for Victor's victory.

Jonatan's previous defeat when meeting Victor was in the final of the 2026 Indonesia Open in early June. At that time, the support of the audience at Istora did not manage to help Jonatan bring out his best ability.

"I see Victor Lai as one of the very good young players. I think he can be a good player in the future, too, judging from the way he plays calmly, patiently, and his defense is also solid and his shot variety is quite good," said Jonatan.

In the latest meeting in China, Jonatan appeared far from his standard in the first game. The 28-year-old shuttler led twice early in the game and continued to lag behind after the score was even 2-2.

The second game was more intense so Jonatan only had a slight advantage of one point at the interval. He then got away with two consecutive points, but Victor's success in scoring six points after that immediately changed the direction of the game.

"Several times the pattern was right, but suddenly it changed and he saw the gap. When I was a little loose, he tried to raise the tempo of the game so that I indirectly followed his pattern again," said Jonatan.

Jonatan's defeat made the Indonesian men's singles at this BWF Super 1000 event automatically exhausted. Jonatan fell with youth shuttler Alwi Farhan, who immediately suffered a defeat in the first round against Ayush Shetty (India).