KUALA LUMPUR: National women's doubles ace Pearly Tan could not have asked for a better gift on her 24th birthday when she and partner M. Thinaah pulled off arguably the biggest win of their career, upstaging world No. 1 Chen Qing Chen-Jia Yi Fan to march into the quarter-finals of the All England yesterday.
Without a win in their previous five matches against the four-time world champions, and considering their recent poor record against Chinese opponents, no one gave Pearly-Thinaah a ghost of a chance but they turned on the style to win 22-20, 21-16.
However, Pearly was quick to play down the significance of the victory as Yi Fan was suffering from an injury.
"We won the match, but obviously this was helped by the fact that Jia Yi Fan was suffering from an injury," said Pearly.
Thinaah said they did not let the opponents' predicament distract their play.
"We just reminded ourselves to focus and not care too much about the opponent's injury. It was all about executing our strategy well and reducing our mistakes."
The win was a much-needed one for Pearly-Thinaah following their recent struggles, resulting in them tumbling down the world ranking to No. 15.
"We haven't been performing well lately, this result certainly helped our confidence," said Thinaah.
Pearly-Thinaah will meet Japan's Rena Miyaura-Ayako Sakuramoto for a place in the semi-finals.
They lost to the world No. 11 during the last meeting at the Kumamoto Masters four months ago.
Malaysia's challenge in the mixed doubles ended with the elimination of Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Lai.
The 2019 semi-finalists went down tamely 21-12, 21-5 to Feng Yan Zhe-Huang Dong Ping of China.