Pearly Tan and Thinaah reached a Denmark Open semi. Malaysia last got this far in 2008
They lost the first game to Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand in Odense, then won the next two. On Saturday they beat Bao Li Jing and Cao Zi Han and made the final.
Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, in the black and orange jackets, with the gold medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham on Aug. 8. Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand, in blue, won bronze that day.
Photo: In Vitrio
On Friday at the SJF Bank Arena in Odense, second seeds Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan lost the opening game and won the match. Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand took the first, 21-14. Pearly and Thinaah took the next two, 21-17 and 21-11, in 56 minutes. That was the first Malaysian women’s doubles semifinal at the Denmark Open since Chin Eei Hui and Wong Pei Tty in 2008. Pearly said they were happy to have made that history. “But we don’t want to stop here. We want to keep moving forward.”
They had started too carefully. Pearly said they were too defensive, and too careful with their shots. India led 11-7 at the interval and closed the first game 21-14. In the second, India led 14-11. The Malaysians stopped and talked. “We told ourselves to enjoy every point and not think too much about winning or losing.” They took the next six points, from 11-14 to 17-14, and won the game 21-17. In the third, an 81-shot rally at 7-14 went their way. They won it 21-11.
Last month in Nagoya, the world No. 5 pair beat Jolly and Gopichand, the world No. 18, 21-18, 21-9 in the Asian Games quarterfinals. India did not take a game that day. On Friday they took the first, led the second, and still lost. The bronze in Nagoya was Malaysia’s first women’s doubles medal at the Games since Vivian Hoo and Woon Khe Wei in Incheon in 2014.
In 2024 they reached the quarterfinals here and lost, 20-22, 19-21. Chin and Wong won the 2008 title, when Pearly was eight and Thinaah was ten. Last year in Paris they were the first Malaysian women’s doubles pair into a World Championships final, and they lost it to China’s Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning. The same pair beat them in the Asian Games semifinal. On Saturday they beat Bao Li Jing and Cao Zi Han, the sixth seeds, 21-16, 21-14. The four of them had never met.
Thinaah called the year a rollercoaster, with good moments and difficult ones. They won the Indonesia Masters in January. “Reaching the semifinals is a positive step for us,” she said. They planned to review the match with their coaches before they turned to Saturday. “We just need to take it one point at a time, keep communicating, enjoy the rallies and enjoy the game.”
Pearly, 26, and Thinaah, 28, were the first Malaysian women’s doubles pair into an Olympic semifinal, in Paris in 2024. The gold medals in the photograph are from Birmingham in 2022, a podium they shared with Jolly and Gopichand. They won on Saturday. The final is Sunday.