French Open: Pearly-Thinaah create history after sensational final triumph

Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah created history by becoming the first Malaysian women's doubles pair to win the French Open title after a pulsating 21-19, 18-21, 21-15 triumph over Japanese Mayu Matsumoto-Wakana Nagahara on Sunday.

In doing so, Tan-Thinaah also became the first Malaysians to win a title of this level in 13 years since Wong Pei Tty-Chin Ee Hui in 2009.

It was been a whirlwind few months for Tan-Thinaah, who clinched the Commonwealth Games gold in August, before the former was feared to suffer a serious knee injury after she left the court on a wheelchair at the Japan Open last month.

Not only did Tan recover faster than expected for this European leg, the pair looked unstoppable in Paris.

They had come from behind to win their first round match against Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia, and tamed world number three pair Mayu Matsuyama-Chiharu Shida for the first time in the quarter-finals.

In this final, Tan-Thinaah were superb as a team, sturdy in their defence, creative in their shot variation to create openings, and importantly they were lethal in their finishing.

They were the more composed compared to the Japanese too, who looked out of sorts at times despite being more experienced.

The Malaysians took the first game 21-19 after starting brightly against the former world number one pair, who looked nervous coming into this final as favourites.

Tan-Thinaah looked sure to take the opening game comfortably, but the Japanese rallied back towards the end.

Despite that, Tan-Thinaah were composed enough to convert the final point at the fourth time of asking for the lead.

How good is this rally from ?? duo Tan/Muralitharan?@HSBC_Sport Follow live action: https://t.co/TjoFnU5nd9#BWFWorldTour #FrenchOpen2022 pic.twitter.com/QZlwPsd2Tq

— BWF (@bwfmedia) October 30, 2022

Matsumoto-Nagahara fought back to take the second game as the Malaysians lost their way especially midway through.

Even though they closed in as the Japanese held match point, the 2018 champions did enough to force a decider.

Armed with an 11-8 lead in the third game, Tan-Thinaah proceeded to seal the victory with a 21-15 score.