Lee Zii Jia's gallant run at the All England came to an end at the hands of Shi Yu Qi, who won in straight games 21-19, 21-13 to send the Malaysian packing in the semi-finals on Saturday.
The 43-minute defeat continued Lee's bad run against the Chinese, having now lost to him four times in five meetings.
Lee, who won the tournament two years ago, started off aggressively against Shi and enjoyed plenty of opportunities to rain down his smashes that the Chinese could not deal with.
But Shi, a former winner himself in 2018, stayed cool and nullified Lee's attacking threat as the game wore on, and found impressive winners to tail closely.
Lee tried to take more risks to kill off the first game quickly, but he made mistakes and Shi capitalised to steal the lead.
The setback clearly affected Lee's momentum, and Shi was allowed to dictate the second game with relative easy as the Malaysian made plenty of unforced errors much to his frustration.
Despite the defeat, there was plenty of optimisim for Lee, who played his best this year in this prestigious event.
