The Malaysian doubles contingent are genuine contenders to win a world title next month after finishing a total 12 times on the podium in nine top-tier World Tour events.
The top-tier events refer to the Super 500, Super 750 and Super 1000 competitions where the world’s top shuttlers regularly compete in.
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In January, men’s doubles pair Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin started off by winning the India Open (Super 750).
Later that month, national pair Man Wei Chong-Tee Kai Wun was next to secure the Indonesia Masters (Super 500) men’s doubles title, while Pearly Tan-M.Thinaah claimed silver in the women’s doubles final.
In mid-May, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik and Tan-Thinaah made it a double victory for Malaysia at the Thailand Open (Super 500) after they secured the men’s and women’s doubles titles.
The following week at the Malaysia Masters (Super 500), Man-Tee beat Chia-Soh in an all Malaysian final.
Chia-Soh went on to clinch the Singapore Open (Super 750) silverware after that.
At the Super 1000 Indonesia Open in June, Tan-Thinaah narrowly lost to world number one pair Liu Chengshu-Tan Ning to earn their second silver medal of the year.
The Malaysian women’s pair went on to finish second at the Super 750 Japan Open this month, along with Goh-Izzuddin.
Most recently, Chia-Soh secured a 12th podium finish after finishing second at the China Open (Super 1000) last week.
To date, the Malaysian doubles pairs have won six titles on the World Tour and finished runners-up as many times.
However, if taken into account Chia-Soh’s gold medal triumph at the Badminton Asia Championships in April which is equivalent to a Super 1000 win, the Malaysians have secured seven titles in 13 events.
This statistics is a huge motivation for these four pairs to go the distance at the upcoming World Championships in Paris next month.
