Li Ning 2009 Sudirman Cup - Why is it significant to Team Phils?

Li Ning 2009 Sudirman Cup - Why is it significant to Team Phils?
- Dan Rupinta

First held in 1989 and consequently, being held bi annually, The Sudirman Cup is the only international badminton competition that does not stage a qualification round. The competing teams are divided into groups based on their past Sudirman Cup performances. For this year's edition, there have been 4 main groups while each group has 2 subgroups (or a total of 8 groups).

I don't recall any previous participation of the Philippines in past Sudirman Cups (at least for the past 10 yrs). With no prior Sudirman Cup record, Philippines has been bracketed in Group 4a.

This essentially works like Tennis' Davis Cup or Fed Cup. Only teams in Group 1 will have a chance to lift the trophy as the teams in other groups fight for "promotion". The teams who finish last in the group will be relegated to the lower group, except the final group.

Group 1 - 8 teams (The elite group - composed of Malaysia, Denmark, Korea, HK, Indonesia, China, Japan & England)
Group 2 - 8 teams
Group 3 - 8 teams
Gropu 4 - 10 teams (2 sub-groups). Top of Group 4a and 4b will have a "play off" on May15. The wiinner will be promoted to Group 3 in the next Sudirman Cup.

The best possible achievement for Team Philippines will be to top Group 4a and then defeat the top team in Group 4b on the May 15 "playoff" in order to be elevated to Group 3 in 2011. {As of this writing, Phils defeated South Africa in May 10 (4-1) and Luxembourg in May 12 (4-1). It succumbed to Switzerland in May 11 (1-4)}

For me, our participation, by itself, has been a milestone. For the first time in a decade or even more, Philippines was able to form a team on its own. It absolutely feels good to see competing badminton camps in the country playing together as one unified Philippines team (at least in the perception department).P

hilippine badminton is still fragmented today but the Sudirman Cup will be remembered as one bold step for the advancement of a solid & unified Philippine team. This is why it has elicited so much enthusiasm in me and to many people