KUALA LUMPUR: World No. 1 Chen Qing Chen-Jia Yi Fan have given Malaysia's top women's pair, Pearly Tan and M. Thinaah, a significant boost in advancing to the knockout stage of the Paris Olympics.
This comes after Qing Chen-Yi Fan secured a 21-16, 21-15 victory over Japan's Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara in the final Group A fixture on Tuesday.
As a result, world No. 13 Pearly and Thinaah will qualify for the quarter-finals alongside Qing Chen-Yi Fan from Group A, provided they defeat Indonesia's Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti in their final group match, which is currently ongoing.
Pearly-Thinaah face a must-win situation as a loss would allow Matsumoto-Nagahara to advance as group runners-up, even if they finish with one win alongside Pearly-Thinaah and Apriyani-Siti.
According to BWF General Competition Regulations 16.2.3, if three or more pairs have won the same number of matches, the rankings are determined by the difference between total games won and total games lost, with the greater difference ranked higher.
Matsumoto-Nagahara have secured a greater game difference than the other two pairs.