TIRED and tearful golden girl Gail Emms blamed "too much badminton" and a lack of sleep for crashing out of the Commonwealth Games' mixed doubles competition yesterday.

She was speaking at the Bolton Arena after she and Nathan Robertson -- top seeds and firm favourites -- were sensationally beaten in the quarter finals by No.8 seeds Choon Eng Chew and Eei Hui Chin of Malaysia.

The young English duo, who had become darlings of the crowd during the successful team event and through the individual heats, had hoped for triple gold.

But they never reached their earlier sharpness, with Robertson unusually snatching the shuttle making several unforced errors.

Emms' explosions of power at the net worked well, but the Malaysians kept their cool to take the first game 7-5.

The nightmare continued , with left-handed Chin at the net finding the cross-court gaps, and the Malaysians took the second game in the setting 8-6.

Only the third game showed the form the world No.3 pair have demonstrated so ably at these Games. With bursts of confident attacking, they took this 7-1, and a fightback looked on the cards.

But, the creative play of Chew, and failure to return to normal smooth partnership play left the English pair adrift. They went down 7-4 in the fourth game as a stunned, near-capacity crowd watched.

Afterwards, a disappointed Robertson was offering few excuses. "We played badly and they played very well," he said.

They had not played Chew and Chin before "and when our usual game wasn't working, we tried something else but that didn't work, either."

Robertson admitted he was feeling tired. This was echoed by Emms.

Wiping the tears away, she said she felt they had played too much badminton. "And there is a lot of noise at night in the athletes' village with people coming in drunk. I've only had five or six hours sleep a night," she stated.

Both had felt the national expectations on them, but were still determined to do better in the men's and ladies' doubles later.

Chew said the Malaysians had not expected to beat the English pair, but they had made "simple mistakes" to let them in.

"There was no pressure on us, though," he added.

There was some consolation for the pairing as they both reached the medal positions in the respective men's and women's doubles event.

Robertson and Anthony Clark clinched a place in the men's doubles semi-finals after some late night action at the arena and were joined by Simon Archer and James Anderson.

Emms and Joanne Goode also progressed in the women's doubles after beating Fatimah Kumin Lim and Yanmie Jiang of Singapore.

For men's doubles semi-finalist Simon Archer it meant a busy day today as he battled it out in the men's and mixed doubles semi-finals.

He is determined to make up for a year of heartache by adding to his gold medal collection.

The 29-year-old from Leamington is back in the spotlight after suffering a long absence from the game with a knee injury.

And he has already won gold for England in the mixed team event at the Bolton Arena and has a good chance of landing another in the mixed, partnered by Joanne Goode.

They met fourth seeds Daniel Shirley and Sara Runesten-Petersen of New Zealand and Archer said: "Jo and I love the big occasion. Nearly all the time we play our best is on the big occasion.

"A lot of people were writing me off, not that the fact I wouldn't come back, but that we wouldn't be as good as we were."