The Malaysian men and women teams qualified for the Thomas-Uber Cup Finals in Kunshan, China from May 15-22. - AZMAN GHANI/The Star
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia have qualified for the Thomas and Uber Cup Finals by virtue of their world rankings.
At the Asia Team Championships cum Thomas-Uber Cup qualifiers in India last month, Malaysia failed to earn the automatic top-four berths after crashing out in the men’s and women’s quarter-finals.
But it did not matter at all as Malaysia have garnered enough ranking points to make the Finals in Kunshan, China, from May 15-22.
The men’s team have 241,788 points, enough to give them one of the four remaining slots. The others to qualify via the rankings system are Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand.
At the Finals, Malaysia will be seeded joint fifth-eighth. Surprisingly, defending champions Japan are also joint fifth-eighth seeds.
Hosts China are the top seeds followed by Denmark as the No. 2 seeds.
For the Uber Cup, Malaysia have 154,821 ranking points to earn one of the five available slots together with India, Indonesia, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM) technical director Morten Frost was not surprised to see Malaysia qualify for the Finals in both the events.
“I’ve said it before that we are good enough to qualify. At the end of the day, sending a young team to the Asia Team Championships proved to be a good move. Now, we hope to do well in the Finals,” said Frost.
For the men’s event, Malaysia are expected to field their best with singles star Lee Chong Wei and men’s doubles players Goh V Shem-Tan Wee Kiong and Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong back in the 10-member squad.
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