Lee Zii Jia’s return to competitive action after a five-month injury layoff ended after 41-minutes, as the Malaysian was beaten at the World Championships opening round on Monday.

Lee lost 17-21, 11-21 against South Korea’s Jeon Hyeok-jin at the Adidas Arena in Paris on the opening day of the world meet.

In the lead-up to the World Championships, Lee had opened up about his battle with depression in dealing with his injuries which he suffered at the World Tour Finals last year.

While he looks to have recovered from that setback, the 27-year-old looked rusty in the opening exchanges of the first game where he committed several unforced errors.

But Lee soon found some momentum to trail Jeon by two points at 15-17.

However, he could not score more points to draw level and his opponent duly converted the opening game win.

Losing the opener looked to have deflated the Malaysian, who was no match for Jeon’s energy and precision which saw him coast to victory.

The South Korean will go on to face Japanese shuttler Yushi Tanaka, who stunned China’s fourth seeded Li Shi Feng in three games.

In the first match of the day, Wan Arif-Yap Roy King earned Malaysia’s first win in the competition after the men’s doubles pair dismantled Japanese pair Kenya Mitsuhashi-Hiroki Okamura 21-5, 21-13.

Arif-Yap will go on to face Thailand’s Kittinupong Kedren-Dechapol Puavaranukroh in the second round.

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