Lee Chong Wei believes there is much more to come from newly crowned French Open women’s doubles champions Pearly Tan-M.Thinaah after carving out their biggest BWF World Tour success on Sunday.
Tan-Thinaah completed a stupendous run in Paris with a phenomenal 21-19, 18-21, 21-15 triumph over Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara in the final.
In doing so, the Commonwealth Games gold medallists also became the first Malaysians to win this event since its inception in 1909.
Lee, a three-time French Open champion, said the pair can go far if they remain humble and continue to train hard.
“These two ‘princesses’ did us real proud by being the first French Open women’s doubles champions. Pearly with her attacking prowess and Thinaah with her defensive strokes and cross court net shots.
“I think they can go far, further than most. Continue to be humble and train hard, the sky is the limit. Both of them are humble players always seeking advice from seniors like me.
“I’m happy they managed this feat, especially against the best Indonesian, Korean and Japanese pairs to the title,” the Malaysian badminton great said.
Tan-Thinaah’s opponents included Malaysia and Singapore Open champions Apriyani Rahayu-Greysia Polli in the opening round, and All-England winners Nami Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida in the last eight.
The pair’s participation in Europe was initially thrown into jeopardy after Tan suffered a knee injury and left the court in a wheelchair at the Japan Open in August.
However, a rapid recovery in just a matter of weeks saw Tan enjoy her third success in Europe with Thinaah.
The pair churned out their best performances on this continent, winning the Swiss Open last year and the Commonwealth Games gold in England a few months ago.
“Europe is a good place for us. We feel happy here, there’s always a large crowd in Paris supporting us and that helped during the match. We are happy to play at this level, but we think we can be better,” Thinaah told the BWF.
Meanwhile, Tan-Thinaah are likely to skip the Hylo Open to get some rest, especially after Sunday’s victory ensured their qualification for the World Tour Finals in China (December 14-18) as a top-eight ranked pair.
