Olympic champ Yi Fan piles more misery on Pearly-Thinaah
KUALA LUMPUR: Jia Yi Fan, the Paris Olympic champion, once toyed with Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah on the World Tour with her former partner Chen Qing Chen.
Now, she's doing it again — this time with Zhang Shu Xian.
The Chinese pair, ranked world No. 11, downed Pearly-Thinaah 14-21, 24-22, 21-14 in the Singapore Open quarter-finals on Friday.
It was their third win in four meetings, including a semi-final triumph at last week's Malaysia Masters.
A dejected Thinaah admitted they failed to seize their chances after taking the opening game.
"We're quite sad and disappointed," she said.
"We didn't take the opportunity after catching up. But overall, we've been doing well and just need to stay focused."
"We dropped off a bit in the first half of the third game, but we wanted to keep pushing. We've always had each other's backs and will continue to do so heading into the next tournament."
Pearly-Thinaah's only win over the Chinese pair came at India Open in January when Shu Xian retired hurt while trailing 14-4 in the second round.
While they may avoid Yi Fan-Shu Xian early at next week's Indonesia Open, danger still looms in the form of China's world No. 5 Li Yi Jing-Luo Xu Min — a potential quarter-final clash.
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