PETALING JAYA: Women’s doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah pulled off another stunning win over South Korea’s world No. 2, Baek Ha-na-Lee So-hee, to make it into back-to-back finals in the Hong Kong Open.
Pearly-Thinaah had beaten Ha-na-So-hee in their last meeting in the Korean Open semi-final a fortnight ago and proved that the win was no fluke when they fought brilliantly to come out on top again 22-20, 17-21, 21-15 in a thrilling 74-minute match at the Hong Kong Coliseum in Kowloon on Saturday (Sept 14).
The world No. 8 pair were trailing 14-19 and 18-20 in the first game but refused to give up and managed to come back strongly to win narrowly.
Ha-na-So-hee, though, snatched the second game after pulling away towards the end.
It was neck-to-neck in the first half of the third game before Pearly-Thinaah stepped up superbly to come away with the win.
The Malaysians also reached the final in last year’s edition, where they finished runners-up to Indonesia’s Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti.
Pearly-Thinaah came second best in the Korean tourney too after losing to homesters Jeong Na-eun-Kim Hye-jeong and will be out to capture their first title since winning the 2022 French Open.
Standing in their way in the final will be either China’s Paris Olympics silver medallists Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning or another Korean pair, world No. 9 Kim So-yeong-Kong Hee-yong.
