PETALING JAYA: Youngsters Low Zi Yu-Noraqilah Maisarah Ramdan pulled off a huge shocker by upstaging world No. 7 Rin Iwanaga-Kie Nakanishi to deliver lone point in Malaysia's 1-4 loss to Japan in the final Group B tie in the Uber Cup Finals.
The 16-year-old Zi Yu and Noragilah, 19, only ranked 143rd in the world, upstaged Iwanaga-Nakanishi, 21-17, 12-21, 21-19 in a thrilling 64-minute match at the Forum Horsens on Monday (April 27).
The world junior runners-up Zi Yu-Noraqilah are only making their debut in the Finals but they continued to show the great potential in them.
The Malaysian team had earlier lost the tie after all players ahead of the young duo - K. Letshanaa, Wong Ling Ching, M. Thinaah-Ong Xin Yee went down in their respective matches - but Zi Yu-Noraqilah tore the script book apart.
A happy Noraqilah said they had played without pressure.
"This is a good experience against those who are top 10 pairs in the world," said Noraqilah.
"Before entering the court I just told Zi Yu not to stress and just play what we are able too.
"We learnt a lot from the opponents especially on serving up quality shots on the court. We still have so much to improve as we did quite a bit of errors too.
K. Letshanaa had started the tie by giving the world No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi a good fight before losing 19-21, 17-21.
Captain Thinaah and her scratch partner Xin Yee were powerless against world No. 6 Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto as they lost 9-21, 9-21.
Ling Ching lost 16-21, 13-21 to world No. 9 Tomoka Miyazaki.
Professional shuttler Goh Jin Wei started well but retired at 3-4 in the second game against Riko Gunji after winning the opening game 21-19.
