The Malaysian badminton team have fallen short in their bid to match their previous Olympic record of three silver medals achieved in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 after men's doubles Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik crashed out in the semi-finals in Tokyo yesterday.
And all hopes for that elusive gold fell by the wayside when the Malaysian duo, despite upsetting world No 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon-Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo of Indonesia in the quarter-finals, failed to repeat their heroics in the last four stage, losing 24-22, 21-13 to world No 6 Li Jun Hui-Liu Yu Chen of China.
The Malaysian shuttlers are now on the brink of returning home empty handed for the first time since the 2004 Athens Games if Aaron-Wooi Yik fail to win the bronze against Indonesia's Mohammad Ahsan-Hendra Setiawan of Indonesia today.
This will be the second time Aaron-Wooi are up against the world No 2 who got the better of them in the group stages earlier this week.
"We've come this far, we want to at least win the bronze medal," said Wooi Yik.
Aaron added: "It's our last match here in Tokyo, we have to give our best.
"I know Ahsan-Hendra have got a better head to head record (7-1) over us, but when we take to court (today), we have to think that we're playing them for the first time.
"We really want to deliver Malaysia a medal."
In the other semi-final match yesterday, Ahsan-Hendra lost 21-11, 21-10, to Taiwan's world No 3 Lee Yang-Wang Chi Lin.
The gold medal match between the Taiwanese and Jun Hui-Yu Chen will also take place today.
Five years ago in Rio, the Malaysian badminton squad scored big when they won three silver medals through former world No 1 Lee Chong Wei, men's doubles Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong and mixed doubles, Chan Peng Soon-Goh Liu Ying.
This year, apart from Aaron-Wooi Yik and men's singles Lee Zii Jia, the rest of the Malaysian shuttlers failed to even clear the group stages.
For the record, the BA of Malaysia had set a target of one medal for this year's Olympic Games.