Jakarta: Efficiency was the name of the game for the World No. 10 women’s doubles pair – Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan in the Indonesia Masters quarter-finals, and they needed every bit of it as the Malaysian pair put together a strong showing to down World No. 8 Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai of Thailand 21-11, 21-16 in 44 minutes.
Having already survived a three-set thriller against Baek Ha Na/Lee Yu Lim of Korea in the second round with a 21-23, 21-17, 21-15 win, the Malaysians were ruthless in their attacks and were quick in net shots to outlast their Thai opponents on Friday.
Tan/Muralitharan will fight the Indonesian pair and No. 7 seeds Apriyani Rahayu/Siti Fadia Silva Ramadhanti on Saturday, while Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan of China will meet Jeong Na Eun/Kim Hye Jeong of Korea in another women’s doubles semi-final match.
In women’s singles, China has occupied 3 out of 4 slots in the semi-finals. The Tokyo Olympics gold medalist – Chen Yufei will set up an all-Chinese battle with compatriot He Bingjiao on Saturday, while the 2013 World Champion – Ratchanok Intanon of Thailand will take on Han Yue of China for a final berth.
Meanwhile, former World No. 1 and the No. 2 seeds Zheng Si Wei/Huang Ya Qiong became the only hope for China to win the mixed doubles title after the Tokyo Olympics gold medalists Wang Yi Lyu/Huang Dong Ping were defeated by Seo Seung Jae/Chae Yu Jung of Korea 21-19, 10-21, 14-21.
Zheng/Huang will play Seo/Chae in the semi-final, while Thom Gicquel/Delphine Delrue of France will face off against Supak Jomkoh/Supissara Paewsampran of Thailand on Saturday.
