Malaysia’s M. Thinaah and Pearly Tan. — FAIHAN GHANI/The Star
PETALING JAYA: Could the Sudirman Cup be women's doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah's last tournament as Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) players?
National No. 1 Pearly-Thinaah are yet to renew their contract with the national body and there's a possibility that they could turn independent.
Malaysia's Sudirman Cup campaign ended on Friday after the team went down 0-3 to China in the quarter-finals in Xiamen.
Pearly-Thinaah were powerless to prevent the team from losing as the women's doubles match was not played following the defeats of Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei (mixed doubles), Leong Jun Hao (men's singles) and K. Letshanaa (women's singles) in the earlier matches.
The world No. 5 pair did play in two matches in the group stage, beating French duo Margot Lambert-Camille Pognante in Malaysia's 5-0 win and going down fighting to Japan's world No. 2 Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida in the team's narrow 2-3 defeat.
With speculation that Pearly-Thinaah have been talking to sponsors outside BAM, the tourney could be the duo's last.
Malaysia have been overly reliant on the pair and have been struggling to produce top back-up options.
In the Sudirman Cup, the dearth of options behind Pearly-Thinaah were exposed with only scratch pair Go Pei Kee-Carmen Ting selected to support the duo.
Pei Kee, 23 and Carmen, who only turns 19 next month, lost to Australia's world No. 84 Gronya Somerville-Angela Yu in the group stage.
Lately, Pei Kee and usual partner Teoh Mei Xing, 28 have shown some improvement and moved up to No. 25 in the world while Carmen has formed a promising partnership with Ong Xin Yee with whom she is ranked No. 64 but the two pairs are still far behind Pearly-Thinaah.
BAM re-appointed former coach Rosman Razak last November to help produce more top pairs but the 49-year-old will need time to develop the youngsters in the national team.
With Pearly-Thinaah's contract situation still unresolved, BAM could be looking at a bleak time in the women's doubles at least for some time.
If all goes well though and they remain under the BAM, Pearly-Thinaah will have a busy schedule ahead as they compete in four straight tournaments - the Thailand Open (May 13-18), Malaysian Masters (May 20-25), Singapore Open (May 27-June 1) and Indonesian Open (June 3-8).
