Pearly Tan-M Thinaah did their job.

They fought their way into the Asian Games semi-finals, pushed the world No 1 Chinese pair hard and brought home Malaysia’s only badminton medal from Aichi-Nagoya.

It was a bronze, and Malaysia’s first women’s doubles medal at the Games in 12 years. Pearly and Thinaah deserve every bit of credit.

But one pair on the podium cannot disguise what happened around them.

Malaysia’s men’s singles players were gone by the last 16. Aaron Chia-Tee Kai Wun fell in the same round, while Goh Sze Fei-Nur Izzuddin Rumsani went out in the quarter-finals. Neither mixed doubles combination reached the last eight.