Marcus Ellis and Lauren Smith's run at the YONEX All England Open Badminton Championship came to an end, as the British mixed doubles pair went out at the semi-final stage to Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti of Indonesia.
Ellis and Smith came racing out the blocks to take an early 9-5 lead in the first game, before the Indonesian pair rallied to win the next six points and put themselves in front at the change of ends, with the game on a constant knife edge.
From there Jordan and Oktavianti seized the advantage as they dominated from the serve return, with the fifth-seeds eventually seeing the first game out 21-15.
The momentum was well and truly with the Indonesians by that point, and that continued into the second game as the British duo found themselves eight points behind early on.
The writing looked to be on the wall at that point, but the home favourites gathered some of the spirit that saw them save three match points in their quarter-final tie to claw themselves back into the contest.
Ellis and Smith put themselves onto the front foot in points to force mistakes from their opponents and turn the game on its head, levelling at 20-20 before claiming a 23-21 victory to send the match into a decider.
The third game started similarly to the second, as Jordan and Oktavianti took a seven-point lead into the change of ends after reasserting their dominance in the duel.
And this time it was too much for the British pair to fight back from, as they went down 21-11 after another gutsy performance at The Arena Birmingham.
Following their victory, Jordan and Oktavianti will face Thai pair Dechapol Puavaranukroh and Sapsiree Taerattanachai in Sunday’s mixed doubles final.