National women’s doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M Thinaah lived up to their top billing today, chalking up their second victory in the group stage of the World Tour Finals to inch closer to the semi-finals.
The world No 2 pair defeated Japan’s Kie Nakanishi-Rin Iwanaga 21-13, 21-18 in their Group A match, winning in 52 minutes at the Olympics Sports Centre Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China.
Pearly-Thinaah will face another Japanese pair, Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto, in their last match tomorrow.
A win will mean that they top their group and meet the runners-up of Group B in the semi-finals.
The world championships runners-up have now beaten Kie-Rin seven times in their nine encounters.
Pearly-Thinaah’s performance at the RM12.5 million Super 1000 championships is a major improvement from last year, when they ended up last in their group.
They got their campaign off to a great start yesterday with a brilliant straight-game victory over China’s Jia Yi Fan-Zhang Shu Xian.
