In the third day of competition at the 2009 world badminton mixed team championships, also called the Sudirman Cup tournament, currently underway in Guangzhou, China, the rookie-laden Philippine team recovered from their 1-4 loss to Switzerland yesterday and swamped the team from Luxembourg 4 matches to 1. The victory kept the Philippine team in second place in Group 4 sub-group 4A behind top-ranked Switzerland.

The Philippine players had a relatively easy day in the mixed doubles, men’s singles, men’s doubles and women’s doubles. The Asuncions beat Phillipe Hengen and Zoe Schroeder with ease 21-10 and 21-7 in the mixed doubles opener. Benjie Gadi quickly disposed of Ben Speltz in the men’s singles 21-3 and 21-7, while Paul Jefferson Vivas and Ronel Estanislao took the measure of Joe Michels and Yann Mellers in the men’s doubles 21-5 and 21-13. In the final match, the women’s doubles, Karyn Cecilia Velez and Gelita Castilo defeated Zoe Schroeder and Annick Weides 21-9 and 21-15.

In the women’s singles, Malvinne Ann Venice Alcala faced Luxembourg’s best player, Claudine Barnig. Barnig took an error-filled first game 21-15, scoring all her points on both forced and unforced mistakes by Alcala.

The Philippine lass battled back in the second though both players were still mistake-prone. Alcala though had the less mistakes and took the second 21-15. In the decider, Barnig got an early 7-2 lead but Alcala slowly clawed her way back into the match and tied Barnig at 17-all with a string of 6 consecutive points.

Alcala then took the lead 18-17 and 19-17 before Barnig was able to counter. The Luxembourg player then scored three times more to take the decider 21-19.

The Philippine team has a rest day tomorrow and then will face the tough Turkish team in their final sub-group match on Thursday. The Turks today lost to Switzerland 1 match to 4 but did give the Swiss a difficult time with three of the five matches going to the third set.

In Group 1 competition among the teams in contention for the title, top-seed Denmark went down to defeat at the hands of Korea 1 match to 4 in a sub-group 1A encounter. Host China easily defeated Japan in a sub-group 1B contest 5 matches to none. The Chinese and Korean victories guaranteed them each a place in the semifinals together with Indonesia while Denmark and Malaysia will battle it out for the last semifinal spot on Thursday.

Indonesia had already booked their place in the semifinals yesterday with their 4-1 victory over England.

(Only the teams in Group 1 sub-groups 1A and 1B are competing for the world title. Group 1 sub-groups 1A and 1B are similar to the Open level in a Philippine badminton tournament. Teams in the lower sub-groups like 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B, 4A and 4B, which are similar to Level A, B and C in Philippine badminton events, are only competing for promotion to play at the next level at the 2011 world mixed team championships).