PARIS, July 28 — Top national women’s pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah kept their quarter-final hopes alive by scoring an upset win over world No. 6 Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara of Japan in the 2024 Paris Olympics badminton tournament this morning.
The world No. 13 Malaysians gave a spirited display to beat the 2018 and 2019 world champions 18-21, 21-15, 21-16 in the Group A match at Porte De La Chapelle Arena.
Pearly-Thinaah led 11-7 in the opening game but faltered to let the Japanese win 21-18.
Spurred by the support of the 8,000-strong crowd, Pearly-Thinaah played more aggressively to lead early in the second game before romping to a 21-15 win to force a rubber game.
In the decider, Pearly-Thinaah continued to rattle the Japanese with powerful attacks and clinch victory, stretching the head-to-head record to 4-2 in favour of the Malaysians.
In their Paris 2024 opening match yesterday, the Malaysians went down fighting 17-21, 20-22 in 55 minutes to world No. 1 Chen Qing Chen-Jia Yi Fan of China.
Pearly-Thinaah must beat Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti of Indonesia in their final group match on Tuesday to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Speaking to Bernama after the victory, the pair hoped to rectify their mistakes in the last group match.
“It was a great game, I really felt happy, but there’s still room for improvement because we still have one more match, so we want to focus on that and give our 100 per cent,” said Thinaah.
Pearly said they almost paid the price in their eagerness to score points.
However, they played a more patient game after national coaching director Rexy Mainaky and women’s doubles head coach Hoon Thien How pointed out their flaw.
“The most important factor for our win is that we helped each other. Our coaches also kept reminding us to stay patient and calm. We were too eager to kill the shots, which made things worse.
“By being more patient and calm, we could really get points. For our next game, we just want to stay focused on every point and enjoy the match as usual,” Pearly added.
Meanwhile, Apriyani-Siti Fadia suffered their second straight defeat, meaning their campaign will end at the group stage.
After losing to Matsumoto-Nagahara in their opening match yesterday, the Indonesians found Qing Chen-Yi Fan too strong today, losing 12-21, 22-24 for the China pair to book their quarter-final berth.
— Bernama
