Pearly Tan and M.Thinaah did the national contingent proud by storming into the women’s doubles final of the Swiss Open, but the rest of the shuttlers, particularly Lee Zii Jia and Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, failed to follow suit.
The women's doubles pair qualified for their first BWF World Tour final after they overcame national team-mates Chow Mei Kuan-Lee Meng Yean 10-21, 21-14, 21-16 in 66 minutes.
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In doing so, they also avenged defeat to their national seniors at the Thailand Open 2 in January.
The world number 30 pair will now aspire to overcome Bulgarian sisters Gabriela Stoeva-Stefani Stoeva to ensure Malaysia returns with one title.
Lee, who played earlier, was expected to book his place in the final too, but the men's singles shuttler was shockingly poor and surrendered to Thailand’s three-time world junior champion Kunvalut Vitidsarn 18-21, 10-21.
The world number 11 trailed his 19-year-old opponent throughout the 41-minute defeat.
In the first game, he came close at 17-18, but silly mistakes cost him the opener, while he looked demoralised and simply out of sorts in the second game to mount a comeback at all, trailing 9-19 to eventually gift Kunvalut the easy win.But instead, he looked lethargic, demoralised and simply out of sorts.
Chia-Soh also failed to stamp any dominance against Mark Lamsfuss-Marvin Seidel, leaving their German opponents to stride to a 21-13, 13-21, 21-16 victory.
Saturday's action also spelt the exit of mixed doubles pair Tan Kian Meng-Lai Pei Jing, who lost 19-21, 10-21 to French pair Thom Gicquel-Delphine Delrue.