Pearly-Thinaah bounce back to reach India Open quarter-finals

KUALA LUMPUR: World No. 2 Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah returned to familiar territory at the India Open, reaching the quarter-finals just a week after suffering an early exit on home soil at the Malaysia Open.

The pair continued their strong momentum by brushing aside French duo Margot Lambert-Camille Pognante 21-7, 23-21 on Thursday to set up a last-eight clash with Taiwan's world No. 9 Hsieh Pei Shan-Hung En Tzu.

Pearly-Thinaah will head into the encounter with confidence, having won both of their previous meetings against the Taiwanese.

But beyond the result itself, the performance carried greater significance as it marked a timely response to last week's setback in Kuala Lumpur.

Consistency has long been Pearly-Thinaah's hallmark on the World Tour, with quarter-final appearances becoming almost routine over the past year.

In 21 tournaments they contested in 2025, the Malaysians failed to progress beyond the last 16 on only three occasions.

That reliability translated into results, yielding four titles from eight finals — at the Thailand Open, Kumamoto Masters, Arctic Open and the SEA Games.