KUALA LUMPUR: Promotion eluded Malaysia but the national team can still be proud of a best-ever third place finish in the Billie Jean King Cup Asia-Oceania Group II competition at National Tennis Centre here today.
Malaysia faced-off against Hong Kong in the promotional playoff today.
Hong Kong, however, proved too strong for Malaysia and secured a straightforward 2-0 win to finish in second place overall in the division and secure a place in next year's Group I competition.
Cody Wong, ranked No. 512 in the WTA rankings, gave Hong Kong a 1-0 lead after beating Saw Jo-Leen 6-3, 6-2 at Jalan Duta.
Elsa Wan Abdul Rahman gave Hong Kong's Eudice Chong a tough time with some big hitting for the first six games of the second singles but was unable to sustain her intensity.
Eudice, 28, showed her experience as she calmly navigated the big points and churned out a 6-3, 6-1 win to secure victory and promotion for Hong Kong. Eudice is No. 293 and has six singles and 30 doubles ITF titles to her name.
Neither Jo-Leen, 17, nor Elsa, 21, have a WTA ranking.
Elsa said it was an eye-opening experience for her.
"Today I did everything I could but unfortunately Hong Kong were just too good," said Elsa.
"It was still a good experience for me to play against a WTA player (Eudice) and I hope to do better for the country next year. I learnt a lot from this match.
"I am happy that we have achieved our best result in this competition (top-three)."
Thailand emerged the Group II winners after beating Hong Kong (Thursday) and Malaysia (yesterday) both 3-0.
Malaysia had earlier in the tournament, which utilised a two-stage round-robin format, done well to top Pool C.
They defeated Sri Lanka 3-0, Kyrgyzstan 2-1 and third-seeds Uzbekistan 2-1 in what was arguably the upset of the tournament.
The three pool winners — Thailand, Hong Kong and Malaysia - proceeded to the top three promotional round-robin playoff.
Malaysia team captain Mulyadi Jamal said he was proud of his players performances throughout the competition which featured 11 nations.
"Last year we finished fifth so to be in the top three this year is a positive improvement," said Mulyadi.
"To be honest I did not expect us to reach the promotional playoffs especially as we were missing two players.
"The key for us was the win against Uzbekistan who were seeded third here.
"The ties against Thailand and Hong Kong were always going to be tough as they both have touring professionals in their teams but nevertheless the girls' gave it everything they had."
Mulyadi disclosed that national team regulars Zenn Lim, who is injured, and Shihomi Leong, who is competing abroad, were unavailable for the competition.