SINGAPORE — The scenes immediately after Singapore’s 3-2 win over India last night to clinch the mixed team bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games seemed as if they had struck gold, but national badminton coach Liu Qingdong will be reminding the shuttlers not to get carried away.

At the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, the Republic’s shuttlers bagged their first medal of the Games after women’s doubles pair of Yao Lei and Shinta Mulia Sari beat Ashwini Ponnappa and Jwala Gutta 2-0 (21-17, 29-27) in the decisive fifth match to give Singapore the win.

Malaysia, who beat Singapore 3-2 in the semi-finals, and England were contesting the final at press time last night.

Liu, who joined the Singapore Badminton Association (SBA) in January after a coaching reshuffle following the national side’s poor performance at last year’s SEA Games and Li-Ning Singapore Open, attributed the victory to the strong team spirit and teamwork.

“I am very satisfied with the bronze medal as this is a high-level tournament with so many high-ranked teams from around the world,” said the 45-year-old.

With five more matches to go at the Games — men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and the mixed doubles — Liu said the bronze medal win had given the team a lot of confidence.

“I think our players can do better in their serves and attacks, and we will step up on that. If we believe, we can win a gold medal, and I think it may come from our women’s doubles pair,” he said.

Singapore last won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 through former national shuttler Li Li in the women’s singles. The Republic bagged a silver and two bronzes at the New Delhi Games four years ago.

And they kept that run going yesterday, where Singapore’s mixed doubles pair of Danny Chrisnanta and Vanessa Yeo began strongly with a 2-0 (21-19, 21-19) victory over Ashwini and R V Gurusaidutt.

In the second match, Singapore’s Huang Chao lost 2-0 to Kashyap Parupalli (15-21, 20-22), before Danny Chrisnanta and Chayut Triyachart put Singapore 2-1 ahead by beating Akshay Dewalkar and Pranaav Chopra 21-12, 21-16.

It was tied again when Singapore’s women’s singles player Liang Xiaoyu lost by the same margin to PV Sindhu (22-24, 13-21) to set up the dramatic women’s doubles match, which Yao and Shinta won. ADELENE WONG