Thomas & Uber Cup 2022: India gets favourable draw, avoiding China and Japan

The Indian men’s and women’s badminton team got favourable draws for the group stage of the Thomas and Uber Cup respectively. The draw was made on Friday for the event that is scheduled to start on May 8 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Thomas and Uber Cup are biennial team competitions – essentially the men’s and women’s world team championships – that last took place in October last year in Aarhus, Denmark. It was originally scheduled to take place in 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

India finished in the quarterfinal in both divisions, with a 3-1 loss to hosts Denmark in the Thomas Cup and 3-0 defeat to Japan in the Uber Cup for women.

Getting to the knockout phase should, at least on paper, not be much hassle for both the Indian teams at this year’s edition, where 16 teams are competing, drawn into four groups of four - the top two progress to the knockout stage.

The men’s team have been drawn in Group C with Chinese Taipei, Germany and Canada, while the Uber Cup team is in Group D with South Korea, Canada and the United States.

Each team includes three singles players and two doubles pairs in best-of-five match ties.

India has never made it past the quarterfinals in the Thomas Cup, but did make it to the semi-finals in back-to-back editions of the Uber Cup in 2014 and 2016.

Indonesia is the most successful Thomas Cup team, winning their 14th title in Denmark, while China picked up their record 15th title at the Uber Cup in October.

Draws

Thomas Cup

Group A: Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore

Group B: Denmark, China, France, Algeria

Group C: Chinese Taipei, India, Germany, Canada

Group D: Japan, Malaysia, England, New Zealand

Uber Cup

Group A: Japan, Indonesia, France, Germany

Group B: China, Chinese Taipei, Spain, Australia

Group C: Thailand, Denmark, Malaysia, Egypt

Group D: South Korea, India, Canada, USA