Pearly-Thinaah only fell short on strength and stamina against Koreans, says Rexy

SHUTTLERS Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah have to improve on their strength and stamina to consistently match the world’s top pairs in the women’s doubles.

This was national coaching director Rexy Mainaky’s assessment after the duo went down 21-15, 11-21, 7-21 to South Korea’s world No. 2 Baek Ha-na-Lee So-hee in the quarter-finals of the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Thursday.

“Pearly and Thinaah did not lose due to inferior skills or technique but because the Koreans were physically stronger,” said Rexy.

“The Koreans were also tired but they could fight through this.

“Moving forward, we need to focus on improving Pearly-Thinaah’s strength and stamina for them to be able to perform better.”

Rexy also assured that Pearly’s lower back injury was not serious.

“She has a stiff back, nothing more. So, we will work on getting her back to her best condition first,” he said.

Pearly agreed that they lost to a better pair.

“Our attacks worked in the first game but their defence was better in the second game.

“They were more patient and did not make easy mistakes. This is something we need to learn from.”

Vivian Hoo-Woon Khe Wei, who won bronze in the 2014 Incheon Games in South Korea, remain the last Malaysian women’s doubles pair to stand on the podium in the Games.

Longer rallies are now common in the women’s doubles and pairs from China, South Korea and Japan are able to excel thanks to their strong stamina.

In another quarter-final tie in the Asiad, Japan’s world No. 4 Yuki Fukushima-Sayaka Hirota overcame China’s world No. 6 Zhang Shuxian-Zheng Yu 24-22, 17-21, 23-21 in an energy-sapping match which lasted an incredible one hour and 59 minutes.

Currently, the most consistent pairs in the world are from China, Korea and Japan and that is reflected in the rankings where the top six are from these three countries.

Ha-na-So-hee, Fukushima-Hirota, Shuxian-Zheng Yu are joined by the world No. 1 from China Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan, Korea’s world No. 3 Kim So-yeong-Kong Hee-yong and Japan’s world No. 5 Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida.

The duo need to work on their fitness to be ready for the Arctic Open in Vantaa, Finland (Oct 10-15), Denmark Open (Oct 17-22) and French Open (Oct 24-29).