Pearly-Thinaah make it into Arctic Open finals in win over Japan team

PETALING JAYA: It is a case of double joy for Malaysia at the Arctic Open, as women's pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah reached the final with a hard fought 21-19, 19-21, 26-24 win over Japan's Rin Iwanaga-Kie Nakanishi.

The world No. 7 showed great fighting spirit to come back from 11-16 down in the third game to narrowly win over the world No. 6 Japanese duo on Saturday (Oct 12) in an exhausting match lasting an incredible 102 minutes.

Pearly-Thinaah have now reached their third final this year after capturing the Hong Kong Open title and finishing runner's up in the Korean Open last month.

Pearly-Thinaah will go up against China's world No. 2 Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning for the title.

Earlier, men's doubles shuttlers Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani put on a smashing show to upstage China's world No. 1 Liang Weikeng-Wang Chang and reach the final of the

World No. 8 Sze Fei-Izzuddin has been on fire lately and fought brilliantly to come away with a 19-21, 21-17, 21-18 win over the Paris Olympics silver medallists in 62 minutes at the Energia Arena in Vantaa, Finland.

It was the independent pair's first-ever victory over Weikeng-Wang Chang after losing all three of their previous meetings.

Sze Fei-Izzuddin have now reached their third final this year after capturing the Japan and China Opens.

They will take on either Denmark's world No. 2 and defending champions Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen or Thai qualifiers Dechapol Puavaranukroh-Kittinupong Kedren for the title on Sunday (Oct 13).