The national men’s badminton SQUAD finished Group D of the 2024 Thomas Cup as runners-up after losing to Denmark 2-3 in the match that took place on Tuesday.
The two teams that have already confirmed their progress to the quarter-finals still fielded the strongest line-up in the final action of the group stage at the Hi-Tech Zone Sports Center Gymnasium, Chengdu.
The national squad really relied too much on the doubles pairing to win points with the three national singles failing to contribute any victory in the action.
In the first match, the country’s men’s singles player Lee Zii Jia failed to deliver the expected victory when he succumbed to world number one, Viktor Axelsen
Zii Jia, who has not lost in two appearances against Hong Kong and Algeria at the group stage, had to accept Axelsen’s ability to lose 16-21, 22-24.
However, the country’s number one doubles team, Aaron Chia-Soh Wooi Yik, made up for the loss despite losing the first set 17-21 to Kim Astrup-Anders Skaarup Rasmussen.
They rose in style in the second set 21-17 to drag the match to the deciding set before winning 21-16 over the doubles ranked fourth in the world.
However, Leong Jun Hao who was placed as second singles was unable to match the experience and quality of Anders Antonsen to lose 14-21, 10-21 allowing Denmark to be back in front.
The doubles combination once again saved the situation through Goh Sze Fei-Izzuddin Rumsani who came out with an energetic game to defeat Rasmus Kjaer-Frederik Sogaard 23-21, 22-20.
The hope of a surprise being able to be drawn by the player ranked 233rd in the world, Justin Hoh was not achieved when he lost to the player ranked 26th in the world, Rasmus Gemke.
Credit must still go to Justin as he came up with fierce opposition to come back from losing the first set 13-21 to win the second set 21-19.
Justin and Gemke continued to provide interesting play in the third set before the action went in favor of the Danish player 13-21.
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