KUALA LUMPUR – National women’s doubles shuttler Pearly Tan could be back on the court sooner than expected, according to Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky.
Speaking to The Vibes, Rexy said Pearly’s recovery process has been going well as her knee strain and hamstring tear is not as serious as they had feared.
“According to the National Sports Institute (NSI) Pearly’s recovery is around 65% right now and is showing good improvement. Hopefully, she can be at her full potential within the next two weeks.
“She has been back at the Academy of Badminton Malaysia for training, but we have limited her movements on the court and just focused on hand work for now,” he said.
Rexy added that Pearly and partner Thinaah Muralitharan, who were the 2022 Commonwealth Games champions, have been training for the upcoming Denmark Open (October 18-23) and French Open (October 25-30).
“Our focus now is for Denmark, if she (Pearly) is fit by then it would be great. If she is not at 100% yet, then we would skip the tournament to avoid further injuries.”
Rexy also said if the world no. 11 pair decides to skip the European tournaments, it would most likely only affect their BWF World Tour ranking and not the World Ranking.
Meanwhile, BAM high-performance director Tim Jones echoed Rexy’s comments, saying that it would be better to skip the tournaments next month if Pearly is not fully recovered.
“We would not want to risk her coming back too soon and making her injury worse. We will still monitor her closely during her rehabilitation with assistance from NSI.
“The long-term priority is to be fit for the Olympic qualifications that start next year,” he said.
Although the focus is on next year’s tournaments, Jones said if the duo can make it into the 2022 BWF World Tour Finals from December 14 to 18, it would be good as they could gain ranking points and financial incentives from the competition.
Pearly was injured during the second-round match of the Japan Open against South Korea’s Baek Ha-na and Lee Yu-lim, forcing her to retire from the tournament in tears as she had to be taken off the court in a wheelchair. – The Vibes, September 14, 2022.
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