PETALING JAYA: Confidence is key for national No. 1 women’s doubles pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah in their bid to regain their best form.
When on song, the pair can be devastating as they showed in their stunning French Open title victory last October.
Pearly-Thinaah have yet to re-produce that form but are slowly finding their feet again after an underwhelming start to the year.
They suffered a disappointing first-round exit at the Malaysian Open last month but showed great determination to bounce back strongly and reach the last four of both the Indian Open and Indonesian Masters.
“Confidence on court is very important for me and Pearly,” said Thinaah.
“Once we lose our confidence, nothing is smooth for us. So, this is what we need to keep working on.
On their performances so far this year, Thinaah said: “We put too much pressure on ourselves in the Malaysian Open as we really wanted to do well in front of our home fans.
“When we didn’t manage to do so, we were really disappointed but didn’t want to stay sad for too long, so we refocused for our next tournament.
“We just reminded ourselves to enjoy the game and give our best on court.
“Now, we are slowly getting back our game play and momentum.”
Pearly-Thinaah, who reached a career-high world No. 5 recently, are keen to build on their improved displays in their next outing – the Asian Mixed Team Championships from Feb 14-19 in Dubai.
“We are really happy to reach this ranking but we are not satisfied.We need to keep working hard to achieve better results,” said Pearly.
Malaysia have been drawn in Group B along with India, Kazakhstan and hosts the United Arab Emirates in the tournament which serves as the qualifier for the Sudirman Cup from May 14-21 in Suzhou, China.
“So far, our preparations for the Asian meet are going well and we are looking forward to it.
“This is a team event and teamwork is very important for us to succeed,” said Pearly.
Badminton Association of Malaysia’s (BAM) high performance director Dr Tim Jones has set the team a target of reaching the semi-finals.
