KUALA LUMPUR: An extraordinary 138-shot rally underlined the Herculean effort by women's doubles Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah in their opening match against Japan's Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida at the World Tour Finals (WTF) in Hangzhou today.
But the world No. 6 Malaysians could not stop world No. 4 Matsuyama-Shida from winning 13-21, 21-17, 21-18 in their opening Group B match in 74 minutes.
Matsuyama-Shida were leading 15-14 during the epic rally and it ended in their favour. It also saw Thinaah running off the court to change her racquet, but to no avail.
The Japanese also won the next rally, involving 97 exchanges, to stretch their lead to 17-14. At this time, cracks started appearing in the Malaysian duo's resistance.
A rock-solid defence, accuracy and staying power have helped the Japanese pair to amass 11 wins in 12 matches against Pearly-Thinaah.
Pearly-Thinaah did well to win the first game 21-13 and led 8-5 in the second before Matsuyama-Shida staged their fightback.
The odds are now against Pearly-Thinaah advancing to the semi-finals from the "Group of Death" which also has China's world No. 1 Liu Sheng Shu-Tan Ning.
"It's not easy to play against them but we had some advantages but didn't press forward while leading and we have to learn from that," said Thinaah.
"Our strategy in the first game was very solid but they really pressured us in the second where we couldn't maintain the same momentum for long.
"I felt that slower shuttles were used in the third game which probably resulted in many long rallies. But they managed to take advantage in those rallies."
Pearly-Thinaah must beat India's world No. 13 Treesa Jolly-Gayathri-Gopichand tomorrow to keep their slim hopes alive.
Treesa-Gayathri are no pushovers and they put up a good fight against top seeds Sheng Shu-Tan Ning before losing in three games, 22-20, 20-22, 14-21.