M. Thinaah and Pearly Tan.
PETALING JAYA: Women's doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah will face South Korea's world No. 10 Kim So-yeong-Kong Hee-yong in the quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics.
In the draw released on Tuesday (July 30), Pearly-Thinaah, who finished second in Group A, have been placed in the top half of the draw and will take on the 2021 Tokyo Games bronze medallists on Thursday (Aug 1).
Both pairs have only met once before in the 2021 World Tour Finals where So-yeong-Hee-yong won.
If world No. 12 Pearly-Thinaah pull off a win this time, they will play either China's world No. 1 Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan or Bulgarian sisters and world No. 21 Gabriela Stoeva-Stefani Stoeva in the last four.
The Malaysian pair lost 17-21, 20-22 to Qingchen-Yifan in their opening group stage match. For the record, no Malaysian women's doubles pair have ever managed to reach the semi-finals in the Olympics before this.
Quarter-finals match ups
Chen Qingchen-Jia Yifan (Chn) vs Gabriela Stoeva-Stefani Stoeva (Bul)
Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah (Mas) vs Kim So-yeong-Kong Hee-yong (Kor)
Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida (Jpn) vs Maiken Fruergaard-Sara Thygesen (Den)
Baek Ha-na-Lee So-hee (Kor) vs Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning (Chn)
