Australia, May 24:
The Indian badminton team sealed a place in the knockout stage of the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship, despite Indonesia pulling off a stunning 3-2 victory over Denmark in the last match of the Group 1D here today.
Ninth seeded India had kept themselves afloat for a quarterfinal spot after shocking fifth seeded Indonesia 4-1 in a thrilling match yesterday.
In the ‘Group of death’, all the three teams — India, Denmark and Indonesia won one of the two matches that they played but the first two teams qualified riding on their game score i.E the number of games won in favour and lost to from each match played in the league.
Denmark (6-4) topped the group, followed by India (5-5) and Indonesia (4-6) after the completion of the league stage.
India had managed to reach the knockout stage of the tournament only once during the 2011 edition, while in the last two editions they couldn’t even cross the group stage.
Despite India completing their league stage yesterday, fans were left on tenterhooks with Indonesia taking on Denmark.
The day unfolded like a bollywood thriller as Indonesian World No. 8 pair of Praveen Jordan and Debby Susanto thrashed London Olympics bronze-medallist combo of Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen 21-12 21-13 in the mixed doubles competition.
The men’s singles was an anti-climax as Olympic bronze medallist Viktor Axelsen suffered a 21-13 17-21 14-21 loss to Anthony Sinisuka Gingting, giving Indonesia a 2-0 lead.
Former Olympic silver-medallists Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen then brought Denmark back in the contest with a thrilling 16-21 24-22 23-21 win over World No. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo. (PTI)
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