Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah cruise into the Taiwan Open semi-finals with a straight-games win, while Aaron Chia-Aaron Tai fight back from a game down.
TOP national women’s doubles pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah and the men’s doubles combination of Aaron Chia-Aaron Tai checked into the 2026 Taiwan Open in contrasting fashion today.
Top seeds Pearly-Thinaah had no problems clearing their quarter-final hurdle when they took just 35 minutes to dispose of home pair Lin Chih-chun-Yang Chu-yun 21-14, 21-17 at the Taipei Arena.
World No. 5 Pearly-Thinaah will take on Americans Francesca Corbett-Jennie Gai in the semi-finals, with the Malaysians having won both their previous encounters.
In men’s doubles, fifth-seeded Chia-Tai had to fight back from a game down to prevail 15-21, 21-7, 21-18 against Taiwan’s second-seeded Lee Jhe-huei-Yang Po-hsuan in 44 minutes.
The Malaysians will meet another Taiwanese pair, Chen Cheng-kuan-Liu Kuang-heng, in tomorrow’s semi-final.
It was, however, the end of the road for Malaysia’s mixed doubles pair Low Zi Yu-Noraqilah Maisarah Ramdan and men’s singles shuttler Justin Hoh.
While world No. 67 Zi Yu-Noraqilah went down fighting 21-11, 20-22, 22-24 to Thailand’s Hathaithip Mijad-Napapakorn Tungkasatan in 65 minutes, world No. 50 Justin went down 17-21, 18-21 to South Korea’s world No. 73 Yoo Tae-bin in 40 minutes.
