GRITTY GIRLS WIN HEARTS
Scratches and bruises won’t deter Pearly-Thinaah
SOME say they “don’t play like girls”. But there is no doubt that women’s pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah have emerged from the Sudirman Cup as the new starlets of the national team.
“Since the Sudirman Cup, we’ve seen a lot of comments online saying that we don’t really play like girls because we dive a lot.
“But that’s really just us playing our style, and so far we’re not getting hurt as it’s just some scratches and bruises,” said Thinaah.
The world No 18 pair may have lost all four of their Sudirman Cu[ matches, but Pearly-Thinaah have earned a lot of admiration for their displays.
Their all-action court coverage and never-say-die attitude has certainly been a breath of fresh air, and even got the attention of badminton neutrals.
Most importantly, Pearly-Thinaah have shown the right mindset as they are not afraid to take on higher ranked opponents. Notably, they almost pulled off a sensational upset over world No 6 and reigning Olympic champions Greysia Polii-Apriyani Rahayu of Indonesia in the quarter-finals.
Pearly-Thinaah feel that the Sudirman Cup experience has served them well as they look to carry their good form into the Uber Cup Finals which start in Aarhus, Denmark tomorrow.
“I think our mindset has only been just one thing, go on court to do our best and just play our game,” said the 23-year-old Thinaah.
“We’ve really did learn a lot from this Sudirman Cup experience, especially playing against the likes of Greysia-Apriyani and the Japanese pairs who are so much more experienced.
“We hope this experience will serve us well as we now turn to the Uber Cup.
“We had a few days of rest before the competition starts so we’re just taking care of our condition before we get going again.”
Pearly-Thinaah’s form are much needed if Malaysia aim to progress out of the group stages from a tough Group D featuring 14-time winners China, Denmark and Canada.
The pair are expected to play the first string doubles match with the other pairs in the team being world No 68 Teoh Mei Xing-Yap Ling and Lee Meng Yean-Go Pei Kee.
The women’s singles shuttlers in the team are S. Kisona, Eoon Qi Xuan, K. Letshanaa and Siti Nurshuhaini Azman.
Meanwhile, 17-year-old Siti was among four women’s singles shuttlers who were officially promoted to the national senior team.
The other four shuttlers are 18-year-olds Joanne Ng, Tan Zhing Yi, Khor Jing Wen and Loh Zhi Wei.
The Malaysian women will start their Uber Cup campaign by playing Denmark on Sunday while the men’s team play their Thomas Cup opening match against Canada on Oct 12.