Doubles pairs lack maturity and it’s worrying coaches

Far from their best: Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah did not get past the quarter-finals in the Singapore Open.

PETALING JAYA: The country’s top doubles shuttlers’ disappointing performances is a worry ahead of the Paris Olympics.

Just a week after failing to live up to expectations in the Malaysian Masters, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik (men’s doubles), Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei (mixed doubles) and Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah (women’s doubles) could not bounce back as all did not make it past the last eight in the Singapore Open.

World No. 5 Aaron-Wooi Yik looked far from their best when they tamely went down 10-21, 14-21 to Denmark’s world No. 4 Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen in the quarter-finals while world No. 9 Tang Jie-Ee Wei lost out 14-21, 18-21 to South Korea’s reigning world champions Seo Seung-jae-Chae Yu-jung in the same stage.Meanwhile, world No. 13 Pearly-Thinaah were no match for China’s world No. 3 Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning and suffered a 10-21, 10-21 defeat in the first round.

Tang Jie-Ee Wei and Pearly-Thinaah lost in the semi-finals of the Malaysian tourney despite the absence of the world’s top pairs while Aaron-Wooi Yik went down in the last eight.

National coaching director Rexy Mainaky acknowledged that the pairs, who are all in the Road to Gold (RTG) Olympics programme, had to improve quickly with the showpiece event just two months away.

“Pearly-Thinaah’s performance was well below our expectations while Tang Jie-Ee Wei are still lacking maturity and not playing like a top 10 pair,” said Rexy.

“The latter cannot always depend on coaches to tell them what to do and they need to know by now how to handle the situation on court.

“They were leading 15-9 in the second game against the Koreans but wanted to finish off the game too fast and ended up losing.”

On Aaron-Wooi Yik’s showing, Rexy said: “Wooi Yik’s game was all over the place from the beginning against the Danish pair. He played like he had no plan. His position when smashing and his net play was all over the place.

“Denmark also played well. They did not play a fast game but were patient.”

Aaron-Wooi Yik, Tang Jie-Ee Wei and Pearly-Thinaah have one last opportunity to get it right before the Olympics when they compete next in the Indonesian Open, which starts on Tuesday.

Rexy wants to help his charges regain their confidence ahead of the tournament.

“We need to work out how to help them to get back their confidence,” said Rexy.

“Psychologist Frederick Tan will have heart-to-heart talks with them.”