Pearly-Thinaah set for epic battle with Indonesian world No. 8

PETALING JAYA: Shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah are out to end their dazzling run in the Hong Kong Open with the title today.

World No. 10 Pearly-Thinaah were in their element when they swept aside world No. 11 Thai sisters Benyapa Aimsaard-Nuntakarn Aimsaard 21-13, 21-18 in the last four at the Hong Kong Coliseum in Kowloon yesterday.

They were expected to face a tough challenge against rising pair Benyapa and Nuntakarn but the former were superb throughout in both attack and defence to come away with a comfortable win.

The national No. 1 duo were happy to make it into their second final of the year after finishing runners-up at the Malaysian Masters.

“We wanted to focus mainly on ourselves as lately we have not been very consistent,” said Thinaah in a post match interview with Spotv Malaysia.

“It’s a good win for us today (yesterday) but we are still not happy yet as we feel we need to be even more consistent.

“We hope to keep up the momentum in the final tomorrow (today).”

Pearly believed that the communication and trust between her and Thinaah were crucial to their run to the final.

“The most important thing is we keep communicating and encouraging each other to believe in ourselves,” said Pearly.

“Our coaches behind us also gave us a lot of motivation and it kept us going.”

Standing in Pearly-Thinaah’s way to the title is Indonesia’s world No. 8 Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti.

The Indonesians will present a formidable challenge as they won silver in the World Championships in Copenhagen last month.

Apriyani-Fadia defeated Denmark’s world No. 20 Maiken Fruergaard-Sara Thygesen 21-16, 23-21 in the other semi-final match.

Based on the head-to-head records, both pairs are evenly matched as they have won two matches each.

The Indonesians came out on top in their last encounter at the World Tour Finals last December.

On the final, Thinaah said: “Everyone wants the title and so do we. But we don’t want to get overexcited. We just want to rest well and prepare for the match.”

Pearly said: “It’s important for us to be more confident in our game play.”

Pearly-Thinaah’s last title was at the French Open last October.

Another glorious ending will be the perfect tonic for the pair ahead of the Asian Games in Hangzhou from Sept 23-Oct 8.