England pair Adrian Waller and Alison Waters had to settle for Commonwealth Games silver in the squash mixed doubles.
New Zealand pair Paul Coll and Joelle King ran out 11-3 11-6 winners and their supporters celebrated with an impromptu haka at the University of Birmingham hockey and squash centre.
The Kiwis dominated from the start with their only cause of concern being when men’s singles champion Coll caught King with his racket and left her nursing a nasty bruise underneath her left eye.
Waller said: “We went out there with the expectations of getting the gold medal.
“But they played a great match and we can’t complain because they deserved it.
“So it’s not disappointing in that sense, but it is an opportunity missed.”
The pair could yet upgrade their silvers to gold in further doubles action on Monday.
Waller partners Daryl Selby in the men’s double final against fellow Englishmen James Willstrop and Declan James, while Waters and Sarah-Jane Perry meet New Zealand pair King and Amanda Landers-Murphy in the women’s doubles final.
“We’ve both got other finals and we’ll recover and rethink about tactics,” said Waters, who came out of retirement to make her fifth Commonwealth Games appearance at Birmingham.
“If you said to us at the start of the week that we’d take silver in the mixed, we’d have taken that.
“So close to that gold is disappointing. But there were a lot of good teams in there and we played well to get to that final.”
