WHATEVER happened between national women’s doubles shuttlers Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan during the China Masters last week was normal, head coach Hoon Thien How said.
He said it was not necessary to entertain speculation that the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallists had a misunderstanding, which resulted in them crashing out in the first round of the tournament in Shenzhen.
He said everything was sorted out after an open discussion between the two after the China Masters.
“To me, it’s just normal stuff for doubles pairs. Some say they argued, but they didn’t. If they had argued, it would have been good because that would mean they are thinking of winning. If they do not argue, we coaches are more afraid because we do not know what they are thinking.
“When one of them expresses their feelings and reprimands a mistake the other makes, the partner must accept it because everyone makes mistakes, (and) nobody is perfect. What is wrong must be rectified,” he told reporters when met after a training session at Akademi Badminton Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur today.
Hoon said world number 12 Pearly-Thinaah did not join the training session today as they were on a one-week break.
Previously, badminton fans speculated there was something amiss between Pearly and Thinaah as they barely spoke to each other before losing 11-21, 21-15, 20-22 to South Koreans Jeong Na-eun-Kim Hye-jeong in the first round of the China Masters on November 22.
Elaborating on their overall performance this season, Hoon said they did well and reached the finals of the Malaysia Masters and Hong Kong Open this year.
However, he said they missed out on qualifying for next week’s Badminton World Federation World Tour Finals in Hangzhou as they could not compete in several tournaments due to Pearly’s injury.
“It’s not that they did not perform well, because they did reach the semi-finals of several tournaments and two finals, though we can still see there’s a gap between them and the world’s best pairs, especially those from Japan and China. To overcome the world’s best, they must be smarter and improve tactically, not just rely on their existing strengths.
“For Pearly, we have determined she needs to strengthen her core muscles because she is an explosive (attacking) player… she needs to strengthen her core and leg muscles. She is already working on her core muscles, and after two tournaments, she has not complained about any back pain,” he said. – Bernama, November 28, 2023.
