Pearly-Thinaah book spot in World Tour Finals semis

The top seeds beat Japan’s Kie Nakanishi-Rin Iwanaga in their second group tie in straight games.

Pearly Tan-M Thinaah will meet Japanese pair Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto in the final Group A tie tomorrow to fight for the top spot. (EPA Images pic)

PETALING JAYA:

 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 qualify for 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. - FMT