Top seeds Pearly Tan-M.Thinaah survived a scare before they overcame Japanese pair Mikoto Aiso-Momoha Niimi 18-21, 21-9, 21-17 to advance to the Kumamoto Masters second round on Wednesday.

Tan-Thinaah needed to dig deep before they got past the unheralded Japanese pair after 53-minutes.

As world number two, the Malaysians were expected to cruise past their opponents who are ranked 132 spots below them on the rankings, but Aiso-Niimi showed no fear against their much higher placed opponents.

In fact, it was the Japanese who took a shock lead after winning the first game. 

Tan-Thinaah recovered to win a one-sided second game, and found the cutting edge needed to secure the overall win in the deciding game.

Tan-Thinaah will next face a Japanese or South Korean pair on Thursday.

National men’s singles shuttler Jacky Kok meanwhile pulled off a fine win when he beat the higher ranked Kiran George 22-20, 21-10 to advance to the next round where he will face Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto.

K.Letshaana also progressed in the women’s singles with a 25-23, 21-8 win over an Azerbaijan opponent and she will now face a Chinese Taipei shuttler.

In the mixed doubles, there were victories for Hoo Pang Ron-Cheng Su Yin and last week’s Korean Masters runners-up Jimmy Wong-Lai Pei Jing.

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