Sudirman Cup: Indonesia's victory seals India knockout berth

Gold Coast (Australia): India on Wednesday sealed a place in the knockout stage of the Sudirman Cup mixed team championship to set up a quarter-final showdown with 10-time champions China.

India made the grade with Indonesia beating Denmark 3-2 in the last Group 1 D match.

This is only the second time that India have reached the knockout stage, following their quarter-final finish at the 2011 edition when they lost to China 1-3.

India couldn’t cross the group stage in the last two editions.

Ninth seeds India kept themselves afloat for a quarter-final spot after shocking fifth seeds Indonesia 4-1 in a thrilling match on Tuesday.

In the Group of Death, all three teams — India, Denmark and Indonesia — won one match each but the first two teams qualified, riding on their match scores, i.e. the number of matches won and lost 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.

The day unfolded like a Bollywood thriller as Indonesia’s 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 into the contest with a thrilling 16-21, 24-22, 23-21 win over world no. 1 Marcus Fernaldi Gideon and Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo.

Sindhu  on BWF athletes’ panel
Meanwhile, Olympic silver medallist P.V. Sindhu joined the BWF Athletes’ Commission after the end of voting for four places on the representative body on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old topped the ballot with 129 votes as she led a trio of women onto the Athletes’ Commission.