Pictured: Rio Agustino, Australia. Photo credit: Badminton Photo
On the penultimate day of the BWF Junior Mixed Team Championships for Oceania’s representing teams, New Zealand and Australia competed in the playoff stages for a clear indicator of their final positions at this year’s event.
After finishing third in Group E, Australia qualified for playoff positions between 25-32, where they opened with a narrow defeat against Sri Lanka.
However, in the second stage of playoffs, the junior team pulled off a cracking 3-1 victory against Uzbekistan to set up their final match in this year’s championships against Finland to compete for a final standing of 29 or 30.
Brother-and-sister duo, Jack and Angela Yu, pulled off the most convincing win in the opening Mixed Doubles, with a swift 21-8 21-7 score in just 16 minutes.
Uzbekistan ruffled a few feathers as they pulled the scoreline back level 1-1 in the Women’s Singles, before Rio Agustino, Kaitlyn Ea and Victoria He secured the overall win for Australia in the Men’s Singles and Women’s Doubles.
Australia will play against Finland from 9am, local time (GMT+3), on day five.
Meanwhile, New Zealand weren’t as fortunate in today’s match. Fighting for places 21-24, the kiwis weren’t able to overcome the challenge from Slovakia.
Going into the Women’s Singles 1-0, Catelyn Rozario kept the dream alive as she took the game to a third end. At 16-16, the Slovakian ran away with three consecutive points and eventually closed out the match, followed by more success in the Men’s Singles to seal Slovakia’s 3-0 victory.
The result sets up a clash against Hungary for the final positions 23 and 24, taking place from 9am local time (GMT+3) on day five of the Championships.
At the top end of the draw, 9/16 seeds Japan overthrew the 3/4 seeds from Korea in the quarterfinals, to set up a semifinal against the second seeds from China.
Similarly, the first seeds from Indonesia will compete against 3/4 seeds Thailand in tomorrow’s semifinals.
Follow the draw and all results from the BWF World Junior Mixed Team Championships on Tournament Software.
