Badminton

Pearly-Thinaah shine again at Indonesia Masters

KUALA LUMPUR: Women's doubles Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah maintained their impressive record at the Indonesia Masters after securing a hard-fought victory against Taiwan's Hu Ling Fang-Jheng Yu Chieh today.

The world No. 7 dramatically recovered from a 16-9 deficit in the first game to clinch a 21-19, 21-16 win against their world No. 38 opponents at Istora Senayan in Jakarta.

This victory earned them a fifth consecutive quarter-final appearance in the Super 500 tournament since their debut in 2021. Pearly-Thinaah reached the semi-finals twice, in 2022 and 2023.

As the second-highest seeded pair in this year's tournament, they harbour strong hopes of advancing further. Their path to the next round will likely involve a rematch against Japanese Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto, the Malaysia Open champions.

Pearly-Thinaah downed the Japanese duo 21-18, 21-19 in last week's India Open and finished as semi-finalists in that Super 750 meet.

In the women's singles competition, K. Letshanaa's quest for her first Super 500 quarter-finals was thwarted by Vietnam's Nguyen Thuy Linh. Despite a valiant effort, Letshanaa lost a gruelling 76-minute match, 21-18, 17-21, 22-20.

Her performance was nonetheless commendable, as she played a higher-ranked opponent in Thuy Linh who is ranked No. 32 and competes regularly on the World Tour since 2023.

Notably, Thuy Linh had just eliminated former world champion P.V. Sindhu of India in the last 16.

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