Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, fresh from their gold medal-winning performance at the SEA Games, broke an unwelcome statistic against Jia Yi Fan and Zhang Shu Xian at the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals 2025.

The Malaysians had never beaten the Chinese in a completed match in their five previous encounters (Jia/Zhang retired in the first game of their first match). Today, playing their Group A opener, Tan and Muralitharan surged ahead after a close first game, dominating the exchanges in the second for a 21-17 21-11 victory.

“Definitely happy for this game because we were specially preparing for the World Tour Finals,” said Muralitharan. “So it was about having no regrets on court, communicating well when things don’t go well, just talk it out, support each other.

The Malaysians seized the momentum at the start of the second, reeling in a succession of points, with the highlight being an 83-shot rally that they won for a 11-4 lead in the second.

“The trust that we have in each other helped. We tried to be calm and steady and focus and that helped a lot,” Muralitharan said.

Other Highlights

» Kunlavut Vitidsarn had one of his quickest wins of his 14 matches with Jonatan Christie, beating the Indonesian 21-10 21-14 in Group A.

» Mixed doubles top seeds Dechapol Puavaranukroh/Supissara Paewsampran fell for the third time in five matches to Hiroki Midorikawa/Natsu Saito, with the Japanese beating the Thais 21-19 21-18.

» World champion Akane Yamaguchi held of the challenge of younger compatriot Tomoka Miyazaki 21-13 21-13.

→Results (Day 1)