5 pairing of Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan in the women’s doubles quarterfinals here on Sunday. Nagoya, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand’s impressive run at the Asian Games came to an end with a straight-game loss to Malaysian world No.
India’s two-time Olympic medallist PV Sindhu and young Unnati Hooda will face China’s Chen Yu Fei and Japan’s Akane Yamaguchi later in the day in women’s singles quarterfinals. A Gayatri deception at the front court was followed by a ferocious rally, with the Malaysian pair spraying one shot wide as the Indian seem to make another comeback. Pearly hit the net before Gayatri sprayed one wide.
The Indian pair, which won a maiden world championships bronze in New Delhi last month, looked competitive in the opening game but faded into errors to go down 18-21, 9-21 against Pearly and Thinaah, the 2025 world championships silver medallists. Treesa and Gayatri looked in good touch coming into the tournament on the back of a successful world championships campaign at home and notched up twin wins over world No 3 Japanese pair of Yuki Fukushima and Mayu Matsumoto. However, up against the attacking Malaysians, against whom they had lost six times in eight meetings, Treesa and Gayatri fell 3-8 behind before scripting a fine recovery to draw level at 10-10. But Pearly and Thinaah moved to 19-16 before Treesa found the net to hand them four game points. Thinaah and Pearly extended their lead to 13-6, with both Treesa and Gayatri committing far too many errors. The Malaysians soon had 12 match points.
