Birmingham: Malaysia’s World No. 22 women’s doubles pair, Pearly Tan/Thinaah Muralitharan, who made a deep Cinderella run at the Swiss Open two weeks ago, which ended up winning their first BWF Super 300 title in Basel, got off to a strong start at 2021 All England as they completed a dominant first round by defeating Thailand’s No. 4 seeds Jongkolphan Kititharakul/Rawinda Prajongjai 21-17, 23-21 to play Jessica Hopton/Jenny Moore of England on Thursday.
In the women’s singles competition, the No. 2 seed Nozomi Okuhara of Japan eased past Julie Dawall Jakobsen of Denmark 21-11, 21-7 to set up a second round battle with either Sabrina Jaquet of Switzerland or Linda Zetchiri of Bulgaria.
Two Malaysia’s women’s singles players, however, suffered their first-round loss respectively on Wednesday. Soniia Cheah went down to No. 5 seed PV Sindhu of India 11-21, 17-21 while Kisona Selvaduray was knocked out by No. 8 seed Busanan Ongbamrungphan of Thailand 6-21, 7-21.
In mixed doubles, No. 6 seeds Tan Kian Meng/Lai Pei Jing of Malaysia needed only 28 minutes to beat Takuro Hoki/Nami Matsuyama of Japan 13-21, 13-21. Tan/Lai will face the winners between Steven Stallwood/Annie Lado of England and Adham Hatem Elgamal/Doha Hany of Egypt in the second round.
