Badminton: Pearly-Thinaah fall in the first round

PETALING JAYA: Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah suffered a blow ahead of the World Championships from Aug 21-27 in Copenhagen after crashing out in the first round of the Australian Open.

The duo went down fighting 20-22, 21-17, 17-21 to China’s world No. 6 Zhang Shuxian-Zheng Yu in the women’s doubles event at Quaycentre in Sydney yesterday.

Pearly-Thinaah held a 17-14 lead in the third game but could not hold on to win.

Doubles coach Hoon Thien How believed that two mistakes while leading put paid to the pair’s hopes of making it to the next round.

“Pearly-Thinaah played well in the match but they made two mistakes with their shots while leading 17-14 which put them under pressure from the Chinese pair,” said Thien How.

“They struggled due to the errors and ended up losing seven consecutive points.”

It was Pearly-Thinaah’s third straight early round defeats after also suffering the same fate in the back-to-back Korean and Japan Opens recently.

The pair had also lost to a Chinese pair – world No. 1 Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan – in the second round of both the Korean and Japan tourneys.

“Pearly-Thinaah need to accept that they did not do well in these three tournaments and go back and improve on where they went wrong,” said Thien How.

Meanwhile, there was good news when three men’s doubles pairs – Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi and Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani – made it into the second round.

National No. 1 Aaron-Wooi Yik brushed aside homesters Allen Fang-Michael Su 21-5, 21-6 while Sze Fei-Izzuddin beat Taiwan’s Ming Che-lu-Tang Kai-wei 21-15, 21-14.

Independent pair Yew Sin-Ee Yi had a tougher time but prevailed 20-22, 21-6, 21-14 over Canada’s Adam Dong-Nyl Yakura.

Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun though suffered a disappointing 18-21, 17-21 loss to Taiwan’s Chiang Chen-wei-Wu Hsuan-yi.

Aaron-Wooi Yik will play another Taiwanese pair Chiu Hsiang-chieh-Yang Ming-tse next while Sze Fei-Izzuddin have a tough task against South Korea’s Malaysian Masters champions Kang Min-hyuk-Seo Seung-jae.

Yew Sin-Ee Yi will likely face Taiwan’s newly crowned Japan Open champions Lee Yang-Wang Chi-lin.

In the men’s singles, Leong Jun Hao will take on indep endent player Lee Zii Jia in the first round today after beating two homesters in the qualifying rounds.