PETALING JAYA: Women’s doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah are unfazed by their underdog tag in the Paris Olympics.
World No. 13 Pearly-Thinaah, who will be making their debuts in the Olympics, have been placed in a daunting Group A which also contains China’s world No. 1 and gold medal favourites Chen Qingchen-Jian Yifan, Japan’s two-time former world champions Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara and Indonesia’s world No. 9 Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti.
Pearly-Thinaah will need to be at their very best from the start as only the top two pairs in the group will progress to the quarter-finals.
While it looks like a tough task on paper, the pair are out to defy the odds stacked against them.
“We are playing in the Olympics for the first time and we have nothing to lose,” said Pearly.
“We just hope that we can give our very best on court. We got back some of our rhythm in our last tournament in the Indonesian Open (last month) and we hope to bring this confidence to the Olympics.”
Pearly-Thinaah stunned Apriyani-Siti Fadia in their own backyard in the second round of the Indonesian tourney and will be hoping for a similar outcome in Paris.
Overall, both pairs are evenly matched as both have beaten each other three times in their past six meetings.
Pearly-Thinaah will need to stay on their toes this time as Apriyani captured gold in the last edition in 2021 in Tokyo with her previous partner Greysia Polii and will be fired up to repeat her feat.
Meanwhile, Pearly-Thinaah have a positive record against Matsumoto-Nagahara as they have beaten the Japanese three times in their past five encounters.
Most memorably, the Malaysians stunned their opponents to clinch the French Open title in 2022 in the same city.
Pearly-Thinaah though will have to improve to pull off another win after losing to Matsumoto-Nagahara in three games in their last meeting in the Asian Championships in April.
While both the Japanese and Indonesians will present a difficult challenge, Pearly-Thinaah’s toughest opponents in the group will be Qingchen-Yifan.
The world No. 13 have only beaten the Chinese pair once in seven meetings in the second round of the All-England in March.Pearly-Thinaah though can take heart after giving Qingchen-Yifan a scare before narrowly going down 20-22, 18-21 in the last eight of the Indonesian tourney.The badminton competition in the Olympics will be held from from July 27-Aug 5 at the Adidas Arena in Porte de la Chapelle.
