However, the Malaysian pair had to dig deep into their reserves to overcome the 55th ranked Taiwanese pair 19-21, 21-15, 21-13 in 51 minutes at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.

This is Pearly-Thinaah’s second win over the Taiwanese pair in as many encounters.

Pearly-Thinaah will meet the winners of the match between Taiwan’s Hsu Yin Hui-Lin Jhih Yun and Indonesian pair Apriyani Rahayu-Siti Fadia Ramadhanti in the last-16.

Earlier, top national mixed doubles shuttlers Chen Tang Jie-Toh Ee Wei fell to Indonesian pair Rehan Naufal Kusharjanto-Gloria Emanuelle Widjaja.

The world No 2 mixed doubles shuttlers lost 21-18, 20-22, 11-21 to the world No 10 Indonesians in a 65-minute match.

It was the second time the Malaysian pair lost to the Indonesians in their two encounters so far, the first being at the Orleans Masters in France last week.

Malaysia suffered heavy losses in the opening round of the tournament yesterday, with mixed doubles pair Goh Soon Huat-Shevon Jemie Lai being the only ones who moved into the second round.

In another mixed doubles match, Wong Tien Ci-Lim Chiew Sien went down to unranked Danish pair Jesper Toft-Amalie Megelund 16-21,19 -21 in 35 minutes. With this, only Soon Huat-Shevon will feature in the last-16 of the mixed doubles event tomorrow.