PETALING JAYA: Women’s doubles shuttler Pearly Tan had hurt her wrist during the Indian Open semi-final match but it’s nothing to be worried about.
The 24-year-old Pearly did not use it as an excuse when she and M. Thinaah lost 18-21, 18-21 in 55 minutes to South Korea’s Kim Hye-jeong-Kong Hee-yong at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi yesterday.
Pearly suffered a scare towards the end of the second game when she fell and hurt her wrist while trying to retrieve the shuttle.
She soldiered on with Thinaah but could not prevent Hye-jeong-Hee-yong from winning.
It would have been the world No. 7 Pearly-Thinaah’s first final in the tournament if they had won.
They were also left disappointed after missing out on their first final since finishing runners-up to China’s world No. 2 Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning in the Arctic Open last October.
“I think it was the same problem for us. Consistency is still not there,” lamented Pearly, who brushed off the wrist pain as part and parcel of the game.
“We are still too impatient to kill the shuttle and didn’t really enjoy the process. I think this is the mistake that we have been doing again and again.
“So, we need to discuss about this. Our opponents also played better than us but we also didn’t do the right things and it cost us in the match,” added Pearly in a post-match interview with the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
Hye-jeong and Hee-yong only combined last November after splitting up with their previous partners, Jeong Na-eun and Kim So-yeong respectively.
The new pair however are no pushovers as they captured the Korean Masters title in their first outing together.
Thinaah admitted it was tough to figure out the game plan of the new pair.
“We have played with the Koreans when they were with different players before,” said Thinaah.
“We know their individual strengths and weaknesses as well but today (yesterday) they did a better job than us.
“There were a lot of ups and downs in the points and we wanted to close the gap really fast and that cost us.
“We will take this as another lesson to learn and fight again in the next tournament.”
Despite the defeat, it was still an encouraging outing for the duo after they pulled off an impressive victory over Malaysian Open champions Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto of Japan in the quarter-finals.
It was also a much better showing from Pearly-Thinaah after they suffered a first round exit in the home tourney last week.
The pair will next turn their attentions to the Indonesian Masters which starts on Tuesday in Jakarta.
