Pearly-Thinaah power into French Open final

KUALA LUMPUR: Top national women's doubles pair Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah are on the verge of achieving their biggest Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour success after cruising into the French Open 2022 final.

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games champions were in smashing form as they downed South Korea's new pairing of Baek Ha Na-Lee So Hee 21-13, 21-17 in the semi-finals at the Stade Pierre de Coubertin, Paris, last night.

So Hee won the 2021 World Championships silver medal with Shin Seung Chan and the pair achieved their highest ranking of world number two.

The world number 11 Malaysian pair will face world number seven Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara of Japan in the title showdown later today.

It will be Pearly-Thinaah's first clash against the Japanese, who beat compatriots Yuki Fukushima-Sayaka Hirota 21-14, 25-23 in the other semi-final.

Pearly-Thinaah had earlier stunned Japan's world number three Chiharu Shida-Nami Matsuyama 15-21, 21-14, 21-14 in the quarter-finals on Friday.

The Malaysians' biggest success in the BWF World Tour was winning the 2021 Swiss Open, a Super 300 event, in March last year and pocketing US$11,060 (about RM52,000) in prize money.

The French Open is a BWF World Tour Super 750 event, a tier-three tournament which offers US$49,950 (about RM235,000) to the doubles winners and US$23,625 (about RM111,000) to the finalists, as well as BWF ranking points.

-- BERNAMA