Germans struggle through mixed doubles group stages to create a mouth-watering all European quarterfinal against the number one seeds
Jan-Niklas Pott and Katrin Seibert have pushed their way up to number four in the world after just seven months of international competition together. The highlight for them was featuring on the main stage in Basel last month, the SL3-SU5 final at the World Championships, just hours before the likes of Kento Momota and P.V. Sindhu took to the very same court.
A silver medal at the highest level gave them enough ranking points to get inside the world’s top five and earned them the privilege of being the standing mixed doubles third seeds here in Thailand this week.
Group matches on Tuesday were going to plan, straight games wins over two pairs saw them living up to expectations. Things went wrong for them first thing this morning at the Huamark Indoor Stadium, as local pairing Chokuthaikul and Henpraiwan (THA) took them to a 21-19 third game conclusion after a gruelling 40 minutes.
Read: Axelsen out in the opening round
With the absence of the world’s best pair, Indonesia’s world champions Harry Susanto and Leani Ratri Oktila who are unbeaten in over two years, there was a good chance here for the German’s to get one step closer to a Paralympic dream by winning this week.
The loss to the Thailand pairing in the group stages has however made things a little more difficult now, whilst still being through to the knockout stages, they lose their seeded position in the draw and must do things the hard way.
A win this afternoon in the last 16 against Megat Yunus and Zainurian (MAS) ensures a quarterfinal spot, and now they’re up against European nemesis Lucas Mazur and Faustine Noel tomorrow morning. The French pair are second in the world rankings and desperate for ranking points after Noel withdrew from the World Championships last month through injury.
Day Three Thailand Para-Badminton International 2019 results can be found on tournament software here.