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India have been placed 5/8th in both the Thomas Cup as well as the Uber Cup 2018 as the final entry list and the seedings have been announced for this biennial international badminton team championship to be held in Bangkok from May 20-27. The 16-men and 16-women team list sees a couple of changes as England withdrew from the Thomas Cup and have been replaced by Hong Kong. Similarly, Spain too opted to pull out of the Uber Cup and their place has been granted to France.
The draw, which will be conducted on Thursday, will pit the 16 teams into four groups in each section.
Based on the World Team Rankings of 22 February, 2018, the teams have been given their respective seedings. The draw will be done based on the division of the 16 teams into three pots.
The top two seeds and the next two seeded teams will head each group. The top seed is automatically assigned the top place in Group A and the second seed too is automatically placed in Group D.
One from the 5/8th teams and two from the 9/16th teams will be distributed in each group to complete the set of four. The top two finishers from each group will advance to the quarter-finals.
The Badminton Asia Team Championships, which was held in February, was the qualifier for this prestigious event. Led by Kidambi Srikanth, the Indian men’s team lost 1-3 in the quarter-finals to China. In the women’s section, PV Sindhu spearheaded India to the quarter-finals, where they bowed out 1-3 to Indonesia.
The final entry list:
Thomas Cup: (1) China, (2) Denmark, (3/4) Indonesia, Chinese Taipei; (5/8) Japan, India, Malaysia, South Korea; (9/16) Thailand, Hong Kong, Russia, Germany, France, Canada, Australia, Algeria.
Uber Cup: (1) Japan, (2) China, (3/4) South Korea, Thailand; (5/8) Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Denmark; (9/16) Malaysia, Hong Kong, Russia, Germany, Canada, France, Australia, Mauritius.
