Playing in their first semifinal in the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Tour Super 500 event, world No 40 Tang Jie-Yen Wei showed nerves of steel en route to beating their world No 10 counterparts at the KD Jadhav Indoor Hall in New Delhi.

“This will be our first 500 event final. Although we won, we still have a lot to learn from them … we have a lot of respect for our opponents,” Tang Jie said via a voice message.

“For the final, we will discuss our game plan later after dinner with the coaches. We will also speak to big brother (2016 Rio Olympics silver medallist) Chan Peng Soon because his experience can help us.”

On paper, the 2018 Malaysia International champions should have no problem against world No 182 Hee Yong Kai Terry-Tan Wei Han of Singapore as they bid to bag their first major title tomorrow.

The Singaporeans enjoyed a free passage into the final after Rodion Alimov-Alina Davletova of Russia withdrew when Alimov tested positive for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, rising men’s singles star Ng Tze Yong managed to give third seed Lakhya Sen of India a run for his money before going down 21-19, 16-21, 12-21.

World No 70 Tze Yong, 21, can hold his head up high after the thrilling 67-minute clash, which saw him lose to world No 17 Lakhya for the second time in as many matches.

In the men’s doubles, world No 11 Ong Yew Sin-Teo Ee Yi were sent packing by world No 2 Hendra Setiawan-Mohammad Ahsan of Indonesia 21-15, 21-18.