Badminton Round Up: The Sudirman Cup

Rakesh N -

The 2021 Sudirman Cup will be held between 26th September to 03rd October in Vantaa, Finland. Suzhou, China was the original host of this year's championship, due to COVID-19, the BWF decided to move to Finland.

The badminton powerhouses China and Japan have been handed the top spots one and two respectively. Indonesia and Chinese Taipei are third and fourth, South Korea, Thailand, Denmark, Malaysia complete the top 8.

Since March 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Asian players have largely been absent from the BWF circuit. But all the stars returned for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, where the Asians topped the podium.

The Chinese have been the most successful team at the Sudirman Cup in the recent past. To date China has won 11 of the 16 Sudirman cups, the Chinese have been victorious in eight of the last nine editions.

Reigning Olympic champion Chen Yufei will seek to lead China’s title defense in the absence of two-time Olympic medallist Chen Long, with Shi Yuqi competing in the men’s singles event. The Chinese team will see Lu Guang Zu, Li Shi Feng, He Bing Jiao, and Wang Zhi Yi, along with Liu Cheng, Feng Yan Zhe, He Ji Ting, and Tan Qiang.

The last time this event was held was in 2019, Japan lost to China and took second place. The Japanese national team will be led by world no.1 Kento Momota. Nozomi Okuhara, Akane Yamaguchi, Mayu Matsumoto, Wakana Nagahara, Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino, Takuro Hoki and Yugo Kobayashi, as well as Akira Koga and Taichi Saito complete the list.

2021 Olympic champion Viktor Axelsen will captain a strong Denmark team, that includes Mia Blichfeldt, Kim Astrup, Anders Skaarup Rasmussen, Sara Thygesen and Maiken Fruergaard. Mixed doubles pair of Mathias Christiansen and Alexandra Bøje complete squad.

Indonesians have included the world champions and highly experienced men’s doubles pair of Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan in their team, along with the newly crowned women’s doubles Olympic gold medallists Greysia Polii and Apriyani Rahayu.

Malaysians will be led by Olympics bronze medallists and All-England champions Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik. Malaysians will look forward to avenge their 0-3 quarter-final defeat to Japan in the previous edition.

Indians have been successful at this mixed team event and to make things difficult Indians have been handed a tough draw as they have been drawn alongside the top seeds and the defending champions China, Thailand, and hosts Finland.

SUDIRMAN CUP DRAW

  • Group A: China, Thailand, Finland, India
  • Group B: Taiwan, South Korea, Tahiti, Germany
  • Group C: Indonesia, Denmark, Russia, Canada
  • Group D: Japan, Malaysia, England, Egypt

The top two teams in each group will advance to the knockout stage, and conclude with the finals on October 3 at Energia Areena.