PETALING JAYA: Women's doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah kept their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics alive with a sensational win over Japan's former two-time world champions Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara.
Pearly-Thinaah needed to win after losing narrowly to China's Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan in their opening Group A match and rose to the occasion to beat world No. 6 Matsumoto-Nagahara 18-21, 21-15, 21-16 in a hard fought match at Adidas Arena in Port de la Chapelle on Sunday (July 28).
The world No. 13 raced to a 11-7 lead in the first game but the Japanese pair fought back to snatch the win.
Pearly-Thinaah though refused to give up and played brilliantly to win the next two games to stay alive in the competition.
The pair will next face Indonesia's world No. 9 Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti and need another win to seal the last eight spot.
Only the top two pairs in the group advance to the last eight.
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