Sport - Badminton

India tops Group

Beijing: India stayed on course for a promotion in the next edition of the Sudirman Cup badminton championship when it thrashed Scotland 4-1 for its third successive win in Group 3B here on Thursday.

The Indians, who topped the sub-group with identical wins over USA and Wales earlier, will now meet the winner of Group 3A in the playoff to decide which team earns a promotion to Group 2 in the 2007 edition of the championship.

Only top eight teams in Group 1 have a chance to clinch the title while all other teams are divided into groups and earn a promotion or are demoted to lower groups according to their performance.

India was given a winning start by the mixed doubles pair of V. Diju and Jwala Gutta, who played despite having fever, when the duo defeated A. Bowman and M. McEwan 15-4, 15-10.

National men's champion Anup Sridhar made it 2-0 with a 15-4, 15-5 win over C. Goddard and then Trupti Murgunde sealed the issue when she rallied to beat S. Hughes 1-11, 11-7, 11-6, in the women's singles. The men's doubles pair of Sanave Thomas and Rupesh Kumar, which had lost both its earlier matches, also got to winning ways as it got the better of Robertson and Bowman 15-1, 15-13 to make it 4-0 in India's favour.

However, a clean sweep could not become a reality as a struggling Jwala and Shruti Kurian preferred to take it easy and went down 3-15, 1-15 in the women's doubles in just 15 minutes.

Top teams in semifinals

The four top teams earned semifinal berths in the second day of competition at with favourite China doing it in style with a second straight sweep.

Chinese fans, who had cheered for Hong Kong on Tuesday, showed no mixed feelings as China blasted past its southern siblings 5-0.

Indonesia, the other strong team in Group 1A, also won 4-1 over Sweden.

Important results:)

Group 1A: South Korea 5 bt England 0, Denmark 4 bt Thailand 1.

Group 1B: China 5 bt Hong Kong 0, Indonesia 4 bt Sweden 1. — Agencies

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