PETALING JAYA: The battle for the Thomas Cup quarter-final spots in Group C remains wide open, with Taiwan, South Korea and hosts Denmark locked in a three-way fight.<\/p>\n
Taiwan face a tough path to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup and will need to draw on their Chengdu heroics when they take on Denmark in their final Group C tie today.<\/p>\n
The clash is a repeat of the 2024 quarter-final in Chengdu, where Taiwan stunned Denmark 3-1 to reach the semi-finals before going on to claim a historic bronze medal, their first in the competition.<\/p>\n
To repeat that result, they will need to raise their level, especially with Denmark backed by strong home support at Forum Horsens.<\/p>\n
They cannot afford another slip-up after squandering a 2-0 lead against South Korea before going down 3-2, despite holding a higher ranking in both singles through Chi Yu-jen (pic) (No. 21) and Lee Chia-hao (No. 36) over Choi Ji-hoon (No. 85) and Cho Hyeon-woo (No. 173).<\/p>\n
Denmark, meanwhile, are in a strong position after beating South Korea 4-1 and Sweden 5-0.<\/p>\n
However, the Danish team\u2019s place in the quarter-finals could still come under threat if they fall to Taiwan, who are also chasing a second win after their 5-0 victory over Sweden.<\/p>\n
If Taiwan lose, it will be a straight forward affair as Denmark and South Korea will go through.<\/p>\n
If Taiwan win 3-2, they will be joined by Denmark into the last eight but if Taiwan win big 4-1 or 5-0, they will be joined by South Korea into the knockout stage.<\/p>\n
Danish coach Hans-Kristian Vittinghus is anticipating a great game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will approach that match with the mindset of trying to beat them and see if we can turn things in our favour,\u201d said Vittinghus.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow everything comes down to the final match day on Wednesday (today). It is a bit nerve-wracking, but it is also exciting. These are the kind of matches you want to play, where there is something at stake.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be a big challenge for the team, which is a good mix of experienced players and younger ones who have not been in this situation before. I believe the team can handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
South Korea, who had struggled earlier, can now breathe easier after staging a dramatic comeback against Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Many had not considered them among the favourites, given their relatively low-ranked singles line-up for this year team event.<\/p>\n
They are expected to face little trouble against Sweden today, and will be hoping for Taiwan to lose or beat Denmark in a big margin.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople expect South Korea to win only in the doubles. However, since we got wins in the singles, I think it\u2019s going to bring a positive influence next,\u201d said Hyeon-woo in an interview with the Badminton World Federation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PETALING JAYA: The battle for the Thomas Cup quarter-final spots in Group C remains wide open, with Taiwan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[37812,27,26,38441,2334,176,38440],"class_list":["post-70565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denmark","tag-badminton","tag-danmark","tag-denmark","tag-hans-kristian-vittinghus","tag-south-korea","tag-taiwan","tag-thomas-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116484526810215239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}