KUALA LUMPUR – Bulgarian siblings Gabriela Stoeva-Stefani Stoeva hope to continue their ideal start of the season in the ongoing 2023 Malaysia Open to seek a third consecutive Olympics qualification in Paris 2024.
The world number 14 women’s doubles pair, who began their campaign by stunning local favourites Pearly Tan-M. Thinaah in the season opener yesterday, want to remain positive throughout the season to finish strongly.
“No negative thoughts…I get angry easily, (so) the target is to enjoy the game, to support my sister and play well. Our goal is to fight with the opponents, not against each other.
“Paris 2024 is our target, but we don’t want to put pressure on ourselves. We will fight each match…we can’t say we will win every match, but definitely will give a good fight,” elder sister Gabriela said at the Axiata Arena.
Yesterday, the Stoeva sisters eliminated world number six Pearly-Thinaah 21-19, 21-14, and are set to face Treesa Jolly-Gayatri Gopichand Pullela of India in the second round, tomorrow.
Commenting on the win, Stefani said they were surprised with the result over the Malaysians, especially after the latter enjoyed a better season in 2022 to break into the world’s top 10 and winning Commonwealth Games gold.
During their only meeting before this, Pearly-Thinaah had defeated the Stoeva sisters 21-19, 21-12 in the finals to clinch the 2021 Swiss Open title. – Bernama, January 11, 2023
