WOMEN’S doubles shuttler Pearly Tan used to secretly watch Datuk Lee Chong Wei in action at the Olympics, even while in tuition class.
His fighting spirit was something that inspired her.
Now, she and partner M. Thinaah, who is also in awe of Chong Wei, are out to show the same fighting spirit to play the game of their lives and reach the quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics.
Pearly-Thinaah need to beat Indonesia’s world No. 9 Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti in straight games today and hope China’s world No. 1 Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan defeat Japan’s Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara also in two games in the other Group A match to reach the quarter-finals.
Chong Wei is the most successful Malaysian Olympian, having won three consecutive silver medals in the men’s singles in the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.
Pearly-Thinaah, who grew up watching the former world No. 1 in action in the world’s grandest sporting stage, are now just as motivated to become medallists at the Olympics.
But first, they will have to become only the second Malaysian women’s doubles pair since Vivian Hoo-Woon Khe Wei to make it into the last eight of the Olympics. Vivian-Khe Wei reached the quarter-finals in the 2016 edition.
“We were really inspired when watching Datuk Lee playing in the Olympics and winning silver not once but three times,” said Thinaah in an interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
“He goes all out in every match he plays and that fighting spirit is what stands out.
Pearly said: “We know how hard Datuk worked and how much he wanted to grab the gold medal.
“It’s really sad and I can feel how sad he was (to miss out) but his fighting spirit really taught me a lot and I want to be like him.”
Pearly-Thinaah have shown they have the same kind of spirit in their hard fought victory over former two-time world champions Matsumoto-Nagahara 18-21, 21-15, 21-16 in their second group match to reignite their hopes of clearing what is the toughest group in the competition.
Before that, the world No. 13 had narrowly lost 17-21, 20-22 to Qingchen-Yifan in their opening match.
Now, they need a big performance to overcome Apriyani-Fadia, who are already eliminated after losing both their matches to the Chinese and Japanese pairs.
There is little to separate Pearly-Thinaah and the Indonesians as both pairs have defeated the other three times in their past six encounters.
Pearly-Thinaah though can take heart from the fact that they beat the Indonesians 21-18, 21-19 in their last meeting in the latter’s home Open last month.
Meanwhile, in the women’s singles, Goh Jin Wei got off to a winning start when she beat South Africa’s Johanita Scholtz 23-21, 21-11 in Group H.
World No. 32 Jin Wei has a tougher task in her second group match against South Korea’s world No. 17 Kim Ga-eun tomorrow.
