PETALING JAYA: Women's doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah need to find a way to overcome China's world No. 1 Liu Shengshu-Tan Ning fast.
Shengshu-Tan Ning ended Pearly-Thinaah's hopes of becoming the first Malaysians to win the women's doubles title in the Japan Open after beating them 21-15, 21-14 in the final at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Sunday (July 20).
The world No. 3 pair have been in fine form this year but found the formidable Chinese duo hard to break down and lost in 45 minutes.
It was Shengshu-Tan Ning's second consecutive win over Pearly-Thinaah in a final after they also denied the latter in the Indonesian Open title match in Jakarta last month.
Last year, Pearly-Thinaah also faced their nemeses twice in finals and managed to win once in the Hong Kong Open but lost in the Arctic Open.
Overall, Shengshu and Tan Ning, who are only 21 and 22, respectively, now lead Pearly-Thinaah 9-3 in their head-to-head record.
On their latest defeat to the Chinese pair, Pearly told the Badminton World Federation (BWF): "For today's match, our game plan didn't work. They read our game quite well.
"We couldn't overcome this, and we need to learn from this match."
Thinaah said: "The most important thing for us is to be confident in ourselves no matter what the scores are in the match. The main thing is to be confident in what shots you want to play.
"Our confidence was affected a bit today. Our opponents put us under a lot of pressure and it wasn't the game we wanted to play."
With the China Open starting on Tuesday (July 22) in Changzhou and the World Championships coming up on Aug 25-31 in Paris, Pearly-Thinaah could face Shengshu-Tan Ning again and need to find a formula quickly to beat the pair.
In the China tournament, the Malaysians could take on Shengshu-Tan Ning if both pairs make it into the final again.
Pearly-Thinaah have vowed not to let the loss in Japan affect them too much as they look to maintain their encouraging form in China.
The pair have reached four finals this year, capturing the Thailand Open and finishing runners-up in the Indonesian Masters to go with their achievements in the Indonesian and Japan Opens.
"Recently, we have been playing quite well. So, I hope this match won't affect us in the future," said Pearly.
"The good thing is we keep communicating and supporting each other, whether we win or lose.
"We hope to keep this momentum for our next matches. We will refocus and prepare well for next week."
